


Here Once and Back Again

by Cbear2470



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Do-Over, Domesticity, Drama, Fluff, Love, M/M, Romance, That didn't need doing over, Time Travel, Yuuri is accidentally too good at skating
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-13
Updated: 2019-07-08
Packaged: 2019-08-01 07:54:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 71,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16280615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cbear2470/pseuds/Cbear2470
Summary: “What?” was all Yuuri could say as a numbness froze over his body.Something—something wasn’t right. It was then he realized he couldn’t remember getting to the rink. He couldn’t remember even stepping on the ice to start his program.He couldn’t remember.He tried to remember.*As Yuuri is skating his free skate, he knows something is off. But, he brushes it aside, too focused on executing the program flawlessly.It isn't until after it's all over that Yuuri comes to discover that he just skated his gold-medal winning, record-breaking program at the 2014-15 Grand Prix Final in Sochi. The very same final Yuuri had once upon a time placed last in over two years ago.





	1. In the Beginning, there was Darkness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter might be aggressively sad-- but then this isn't your first first chapter of a time travel AU is it? So I imagine you are already anticipating that. However, I do have a really hard time gauging the emotional impact of my own writing though. So I really don't know how it will actually make any given person feel. But feel free to tell me about your feelings in the comments-- I'd love to hear about them, genuinely.

**“** What’s the worst thing that could happen?” Viktor had asked him once. “It’s not as if anyone has ever died figure skating.”

Yuuri, looking out across the ice, had sighed.

The funny thing was—if you had a twisted sense of humor of course—was that it wasn’t even all that long ago that Viktor had said this to him. In fact it was only days.

Only days ago, he and Viktor had stood by the ice, Yuuri working himself up into a panic, Viktor soothing Yuuri so effortlessly now. Yuuri could remember back to when Viktor had first shown up to coach Yuuri in Hasetsu, two years ago now—how hopeless Viktor was at ever saying the right thing.

But now Viktor knew Yuuri so well, perhaps better than anyone else. He knew just the places to touch, just the words to say, to ground Yuuri into himself. Into them. Together.

And in that particular moment, the World Championship had been going on in front of them, but Yuuri had suddenly felt like he was in a bubble as he stood with Viktor, waiting for their group to be called to the ice for the warm up.

Yuuri remembered noticing how the lights reflected off the ice and made it glow. He remembered thinking about how unfortunately it was too late in the competition for much of the sparkle that Yuuri loved about freshly resurfaced ice.

The ice as Yuuri looked at it then was matte with scratches—few parts left untouched after several groups of skaters had torn it up with their free programs.

Looking at it had made Yuuri all the more excited to return to Japan soon. He had been looking forward to getting back to early mornings at Ice Castle, the ice freshly polished from the night before.

One of the few unfortunate things about having spent the last year training in St. Petersburg was that Yuuri had rarely gotten to skate on truly fresh ice. The rink was just too busy. Even the mornings he’d get to the rink before sunrise, half a dozen other skaters would already be there tearing into their warm up before Yuuri had any more than a few seconds to enjoy the glimmering sleekness. Every once in a great while Yuuri would coincidentally have his private ice time scheduled right after a mid-day Zamboni run, but private rink time was so sacred Yuuri would have to fall straight into running his programs. There was no time to just mindlessly glide and enjoy the gleam.

But after the competition on that day, Viktor was going to retire, and he would return to Hasetsu with Yuuri to coach him for the next season.

Yuuri had been already so desperately looking forward to all the late nights and early mornings alone with Viktor at Ice Castle, skating in tandem, the sparkle of the ice reflecting off Viktor’s eyes.

“I’m not quite sure about that,” Yuuri had responded, falling forward against Viktor’s chest in defeat. “But even if I don’t  _die_ , I could break my leg. Or my arm. Or give myself a concussion. Or, you know, just come in absolutely last place,” he had murmured, half-jokingly, a finger tracing the  _RUSSIA_  emblazoned across Viktor’s jacket.

“Oh, hush, lyubov moya,” Viktor had said in response as he wrapped his arms around Yuuri and pulled him even closer. “You’re going to do brilliantly. And come in the complete opposite of absolutely last place.”

Yuuri had taken a deep breath and let out one more sigh. Then he’d turned his head so that he could look up at his fiancé-slash-coach-slash-competitor.

“Well,” Yuuri had said with a small, knowing smile, “I don’t know about that. But second place seems quite alright.”

“Yuuri,” Viktor had sighed, pushing Yuuri away from him so he could look him in the eye, but still holding onto his shoulders, keeping him no more than arms-length away, “We’ve talked about this.”

“I know, we agreed that since I won the Prix, you’re going to win the championship. Viktor Nikiforov does not retire with a silver medal.”

“We absolutely did not agree on this!” Viktor had proclaimed with a laugh. “Viktor Nikiforov’s student does not come in second place!”

“I don’t know, Vitya,” Yuuri had shrugged, a smile tugging harder at his lips. “I guess we’ll just have to see.”

“Yeah, see you on top of the podium,” Viktor had said definitively before slinging an arm around Yuuri’s shoulder and pulling him close to his side.

But, by the end of that day, Viktor had been proven wrong. As it of course should have been, just this one time, Yuuri had felt. Usually Viktor was right, some way or another, even when it seemed he was being entirely ridiculous. Even when it seemed like he was grasping at straws or taking leaps of faith. He was always right, Yuuri had eventually learned to accept.

But of course, this time, he had been wrong.

Viktor had ended up coming out on top, beating Yuuri by only a few points.

Yuuri hadn’t minded a bit though. If there was ever going to be a time for him to be right, he was glad he’d used it on this time. He’d been so, so proud to stand on the step below Viktor for one final time.

But it turned out that day had had far more lasts than Yuuri could have ever imagined.

And Viktor had been wrong about more things than either of them ever could have dreamed in their worst nightmare.

*

After the Championship was over, they’d gone back to St. Petersburg to finish up packing. The apartment they had shared that year was already nearly empty, but it felt wrong to fly directly to Japan after the World Championship. Most of the furniture had already been sold off and their less easily replaceable possessions were shipped off and waiting for them in Hasetsu.

But a few things were still left—a few boxes of dishes to be dropped off at a charity shop, a couple suitcases of clothes and possessions that felt too precious to ship, an air mattress on the floor of the bedroom, and of course an excited Makkachin wagging her tail.

Yuuri added their competition gear to the stack of suitcases by the door as he and Viktor entered the apartment for what would be the last time.

“It’s so empty,” Yuuri had said a bit helplessly. His voice sounded strange in the nearly vacant apartment—echoing through the open space. “Our last night in the first home we ever shared—just us.”

Viktor had hummed.

“It does feel a bit… sentimental, doesn’t it?”

“We should do something special, shouldn’t we?”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Viktor had said, giving Yuuri a suggestive, mischievous look, “But I can think of  _someone_  extraordinarily special I’d like to do.”

Yuuri had rolled his eyes.

“Vitya,” he’d scolded. “Of course we can do _that_. But later. I was thinking of something else though, to mark the occasion. I just don’t know what.”

“Hm,” was all Viktor had said, before he grew quiet for a few moments, looking pensive. “Oh! I have it!” he’d announced after another few moments.

“What?” Yuuri had asked as he watched Viktor light up, clearly incredibly pleased with his decision.

“Take off your shoes,” Viktor had said in response, already working on undoing the laces of his own.

Yuuri had of course done so without question, carelessly kicking off his own shoes.

“Okay, now what?”

Yuuri had thought he would never forget the way Viktor had smiled at him in that moment. It was the kind of smile that started small, modest, as if Viktor had been trying to play it cool. But then it quickly grew. Grew until it couldn’t stretch any wider. Grew until it reached his eyes and he was beaming.

In that moment, Yuuri had thought that in fifty years’ time, he would remember this exact moment with great clarity.

“Now, we skate.”

At the declaration, Yuuri had scrunched up his face in skepticism and confusion. He was sure that his expression was far less memorable than Viktor’s.

But then Viktor, in his bare socked feet, pushed off and twirled into a spin on the ball of his foot, sliding easily on the hardwood floors.

Yuuri could only watch at the splendor of it. Viktor was just as beautiful and graceful in that moment as any time he’d ever been on the ice.

“Come on Yuuri, skate with me!” Viktor had called. But then he’d given Yuuri little choice in the matter, reaching out and grabbing onto Yuuri and sweeping him up with him.

It was only moments before they were laughing as they slipped and slid across the floors, Makka pouncing and skidding along after them.

But then, without giving it much thought, Yuuri had decided to throw himself into a single loop jump.

He of course had practiced jumps off ice probably thousands of times in his life. Singles with no more power than he could get launching himself from a few quick steps, the higher rotation jumps using intricate harness systems and other training tools.

And then of course the number of jumps he’d performed on ice in his lifetime was probably even higher.

But somewhere, between the unusual combination of the slick of the floors and the lack of skates, Yuuri miscalculated and instantly realized he’d made a mistake.

“Yuuri!” Viktor had called out the instant Yuuri started falling.

Yuuri had hit the floor with a thud, falling flat onto his back.

“Yuuri!” Viktor had called again and was at Yuuri’s side in a moment. “Are you okay?”

Yuuri had stared up at Viktor as the man looked down at him. He remembered thinking about how while he was a little embarrassed as to how he had gotten there, it wasn’t hard to enjoy the view.

“I told you I could hurt myself,” Yuuri had said softly. “Always a risk with skating.”

“Oh, Yuuri!” Viktor had exclaimed in response, his face still taught with worry. “Don’t you dare worry me like that, zolotse!”

Yuuri had chuckled and sighed.

“Kiss it and make it better?” Yuuri had asked, hoping to lighten the mood.

It had been such a joy to watch as Viktor’s face filled back up with light.

“Oh? Where does it hurt?”

“ _Everywhere.”_

Viktor’s face had then become dangerous at that, twisting with mischief. But, the only danger Viktor ever posed, Yuuri had quickly discovered within the first year of knowing him well, was loving someone too much.

“Is it later enough for you now?” Viktor had asked. His voice had been low then, deeper and sultry, his accent even thicker than usual—his words so soft they were little more than a whisper.

Yuuri though, knowing Viktor’s antics too well by now, had smiled and shook his head fondly before swatting at Viktor playfully.

“Shut up and kiss me.”

And of course, Viktor had.

*

The next morning they’d loaded the rest of their belongings and Makka into the back of their rental car and took off out of town.

For one final Russian hurrah, and the briefest of vacations before getting right into off-season training, Yuuri and Viktor were going to go spend a weekend at a cabin that belonged to Viktor’s family before finally flying to Japan.

Viktor had spoken fondly of the cabin, which had apparently been a place he had spent many a summer as a child. Now, though, Viktor didn’t have much family left or time to enjoy it himself and the cabin sat empty most of the year, turned over to a property management company that cleaned it up and rented it out every summer.

Yuuri had been so excited. Though he traveled constantly it seemed, he hadn’t taken a real vacation in years—and he’d certainly never had a holiday with Viktor. The closest he’d probably ever gotten was the night of their engagement in Spain.

“It will be like our honeymoon, the prequel,” Viktor had said when he’d first pitched the idea. “You know, some practice. We both know how important practice is.”

The drive out to the cabin had not been particularly long, it turned out to only be about forty minutes outside the city—the city center mellowing out into suburbs and finally turning into fields and farmland which turned into thick woods.

Russia had never really reminded Yuuri any of Japan, but these rural outskirts had suddenly reminded him a bit of Michigan, what little he’d seen of the state outside of the university and training facilities when Phichit coordinated American friends with cars to drive them on mini road trips on the rare weekend day off.

As they drove along, what had been a quiet drive had eventually grown livelier as Viktor began to talk excitedly about the cabin and the memories of his childhood.

“It’s nothing much, really. It didn’t even have a bathroom until we finally were able to run plumbing in the late-90’s and demolished the outhouse. Which had of course been a small and expensive fiasco to facilitate. The stove is still wood burning though—but I don’t mind, that smoky smell is part of the charm, I think,” Viktor had rambled, and Yuuri had just smiled at him, his energy a bit infectious. “But it’s on a beautiful plot of land—surrounded by trees, with this little pond out front that we’d swim and fish in! My babushka used to keep a garden as well, although I suppose if there is anything left of it, it’s probably dead after the winter.”

Yuuri had continued to just sit beside him in the passenger seat, saying little in response and letting Viktor chatter away. He had just been content to stroke Makkachin's fur from where her head rested on the console between the seats and listen. He had been so happy just to be in the other man’s company.  They could be going to Antarctica, or a barren planet, or been standing in a very long line at a government agency, Yuuri wouldn’t have minded as long as Viktor was there. 

When they had arrived at the cabin though, Yuuri suddenly understood Viktor’s fondness. It was beautiful. Although it was April now, there was a thick frost coating the property, having yet to get above freezing after a harsh winter. The pond that Viktor had spoken of glimmered, still frozen over, as the late afternoon sun shone down through the trees, illuminating the entire property in a golden-hour glow. The cabin itself was the textbook definition of rustic—in a way that automatically felt homey even though it was like no home Yuuri had ever had.

“It’s magical, Vitya,” Yuuri had told Viktor as the other man pulled their car to a stop.

“I’m excited to share it with you, my Yuuri.”

They’d gone in side and although it had taken a couple hours just to sweep out the cobwebs and remove the layer of dust that had built up over the winter, soon enough Viktor had lit some candles he’d brought along and started a fire, and as the evening grew darker, they found themselves wrapped up in a blanket together on the couch, Makkachin at their feet, bowls of stew warming their hands.

“This is perfect,” Yuuri had said.

“ _You_  are perfect,” Viktor had responded, leaning over to place a lingering kiss on Yuuri’s cheek.

Yuuri had for once decided not to argue, and instead had placed his empty bowl onto the table beside him before snuggling down into Viktor’s side.

Yuuri had remembered thinking about how he was almost afraid to pinch himself—to discover this was all a dream. But he knew it couldn’t be, because Yuuri’s imagination had never been this good. Yuuri was very familiar with what dreams and fantasies of what life with Viktor Nikiforov could be like.

He’d never, ever, though, once thought it could possibly be this warm.

*

And that is what Yuuri remembered—in the moment that his entire life should have flashed before his eyes. Not his entire life though, just Viktor, mostly just those last two days—enough memories there for a lifetime.

Enough goodness, enough love for an entire lifetime.

And the last flashing thought Yuuri had was treacherous, because of course it was. Because despite everything, all the love Viktor had shown him, of course in the final, panicked moments, Yuuri found himself filled with self-deprecation and doubt.

_Of course this is all you get in this life. These past two years with Viktor were more than you could have ever deserved. And even those were more luck than any person should possibly be allowed._

_The universe only allotted you so much good for this life, and you used it all on him—all at once. He was so much more than anyone could ever be worth._

_This is the price you pay._

And that was the last thing Yuuri thought as his body went numb and the struggle in him ran out.

That was the last thing he thought as everything Yuuri knew became replaced with cold as a gasping breath filled him from the inside out with searing ice.

*

Yuuri was skating his free program from that past season.

Or he must have been anyway. That’s certainly was what his body was doing.

But for some reason the music wasn’t right.

This past season, Viktor and Yuuri had together decided that they would re-do Yuuri’s last season pre-Viktor. It had been Yuuri’s idea, of course, wanting to re-do that disastrous season that had nearly driven him to retire.

And Viktor, of course, being the unreasonable voice of reason had reminded Yuuri that that season wasn’t actually that disastrous. At the end of the day, he’d still placed sixth in the grand prix series out of the dozens of skaters who competed over its course.

But Viktor had agreed quickly none-the-less to let Yuuri have a redo, in a sense, of his free program from that year—to let Yuuri reclaim that performance, to symbolically fight back from the shame that he’d felt after that disaster.

So, they’d gotten a different version of the same song he’d competed with that year—a melodious piano version that was both gentle and powerful. And together, they’d crafted a program that won Yuuri the Grand Prix final, setting a new record.

But the music now was the original version—a full orchestra. But Yuuri didn’t have any time to think about that—had they submitted the wrong version maybe?

Yuuri didn’t have time to put it together. Whatever had happened, right now he had to skate.

Yuuri had grown so much better these past few years at letting skating clear his mind. Once upon a time, of course, Yuuri would spiral out on the rink, letting his mind run away with worry. But now Yuuri could skate without giving thought to anything but the program, anything but getting lost in the freedom of the ice.

The crowds in the stands, the judges, his own worry and self-doubt were all silenced for the sake of Yuuri and his art.

Because that’s what skating was. It was art. Viktor had of course taught Yuuri that long, long before he had ever actually met the man in person. But it wasn’t until Viktor began to work with him that Yuuri realized that his body, too, could create masterpieces. People had praised his performance for years, but Yuuri’s performance skills had always been more of a side-effect of the way he had learned to cope with his anxiety to be able to skate at all. It was a strange and beautiful coping mechanism for flinging the emotions out of his body.

Under Viktor’s coaching though, Yuuri had learned how to fine tune every aspect of his physical being on the ice into masterful performance.

So Yuuri ignored the swell of the violins and pushed himself into the second half of the program. He still had two more quads, of course to focus on getting through. This program had been designed to highlight his stamina—meaning a program that was too grueling for any other skater beside him to even consider attempting.

A quad salchow came only a few seconds into the second half easily enough, and Yuuri finished out the combination effortlessly.

Yuuri couldn’t, admittedly, say that he’d never again fallen in competition after that first year with Viktor. Of course he still did. But it became rarer, and when he did, Yuuri shot up faster, recovered quicker, ran the numbers in milliseconds in his head to figure out how to make up for it.

But Yuuri could tell as he skated the program today that he wasn’t going to fall.

And so when the quad flip came in the last twenty seconds of the program, Yuuri didn’t doubt for even a second.

Where Viktor’s signature had been the quad flip in general, Yuuri’s signature had become having one pushed right to the very end of his program.

And he never, ever fell on his quad flip—not once that entire season. The flip was his homage to Viktor. It was his love letter, his monument, his strange and public way of making love to Viktor from across the ice.

And so of course, as the program finished, Yuuri immediately looked out across the ice for Viktor, right over to where he should have been waiting for him at the edge of the rink by the barriers opening.

He needed to see the look on Viktor’s face. That was Yuuri’s real prize now-a-day, seeing Viktor’s reactions to his performances. It didn’t matter what color the medal was, they didn’t make him feel anything like the moment of seeing Viktor’s reaction always did.

But he turned, Yuuri found that Viktor wasn’t there where he was supposed to be. Instead, Celestino was.

And that’s when the shield of his focus that when up during his performance began to crack.

And Yuuri began to notice that it wasn’t just the music that had been wrong.

For one thing, the crowd was too quiet and too loud all at once.

Now, Yuuri had gotten to know applause levels well over the course of his career. He knew the way crowds sounded when they genuinely enjoyed programs. He knew how crowds sounded when they were sympathetic of programs. He knew how crowds sounded when they recognized an excellent performance. He also knew how crowds sounded when they were in awe.

But this applause though was different.

It wasn’t like anything he’d ever heard before.

Helplessly he stood in the center of the ice for a few more moments, trying to figure out what was going on.

He looked back to the mouth of the rink to still see Celestino there. Why was Celestino there instead of Viktor? Had Viktor had an emergency and asked Celestino to step in? He tried to remember.

He tried to remember.

Eventually, after he’d probably stood there for far too long, Yuuri decided there was nothing else to do but make his way off the ice and go ask Celestino why he was there.

It was odd, too, he realized as he made his way across the ice, that there was no plush poodle or a smiling personified katsudon bowl plushie for him to scoop up on the way.

Last season, after a rather invasive media circuit, Yuuri’s fans had been able to get more targeted with the gifts they’d throw down onto the ice. Today though the ice only had a few flowers on it, as if no one had brought a personalized gift for Yuuri. Not that Yuuri needed people to do that for him, or expected it, but it had become a norm over the last season and it was strange to exit across nearly empty ice as he made his way over to Celestino.

As he got closer to his former coach though, he suddenly became aware of a very strange look on the other man’s face. The worry in his stomach grew.

He didn’t have time to say much of anything, though, when he got to the edge of the rink. Instead the million questions went unanswered as he tried to speak.

“Celestino—” he’d began.

“Yuuri, what was that?” Celestino cut him off immediately. His voice was strange and gruff.

“What?”

“What was that—that program? Where did you learn it? When were you working on it? I just—I don’t even know what to say,” Celestino asked. He seemed confused, and shocked, and worried, Yuuri realized. But apparently not about the missing Viktor, but about him.

“What are you talking about?” Yuuri asked quickly. “Where’s Viktor?”

“Probably over with his coach, fearing for his title, I imagine.”

“What?” was all Yuuri could say as a numbness froze over his body.

Something—something wasn’t right. It was then he realized he couldn’t remember getting to the rink. He couldn’t remember even stepping on the ice to start his program.

He couldn’t remember.

He tried to remember.

He’d—the season was over wasn’t it? Why was he—where was he?

He was supposed to be moving with Viktor back to Japan. Viktor had retired.

In a panic, Yuuri spun around, looking for something, anything.

Then on the edge of the rink he saw it. A logo. He’d seen so many of them over the years, and never really thought much of them. But now he couldn’t tear his eyes off of it.

_Sochi 2014_

Then, under it in smaller font:

_Grand Prix Series_

What?

This—this had to be some kind of mistake, right. He’d just finished the 2016-2017 season at the World Championships in Helsinki. How was he back here?

He tried to remember.

He tried to remember.

Viktor, standing next to him in the middle of the podium, his final Gold Medal around his neck.

Viktor, smiling at him.

Viktor, sliding across the floor of their empty apartment.

There’d been more. There’d been more.

Then in an instant, Yuuri remembered.

_There was supposed to have been so much more._

With the rush of too distant feeling memories, Yuuri immediately fell to his knees and let out an anguished sob.

*

Yuuri had woken up that morning tangled up in Viktor.

He’d remembered thinking how quiet it had been. Until St. Petersburg, he’d never really spent time in cities, but St. Petersburg, Detroit, even Hasetsu seemed deafening in comparison to this quiet.

Yuuri had even found himself snapping his fingers gently to just make sure he somehow hadn’t lost his hearing in the night, it was that quiet.

Carefully, he had slid out of bed. As much as he enjoyed just spending time lying in bed with Viktor, the other man was dead asleep. Viktor, Yuuri had learned quickly, was if given the choice not essentially a morning person. He wasn’t grumpy, in the traditional sense of not-being-a-morning-person. But, if he didn’t have an alarm set, he and Makka would sleep like a rock far, far later than Yuuri ever could. 

So Yuuri had gotten up that morning, intent on doing a bit of exploring on his own before trying to lure Viktor, or at least Makka, to consciousness with the smell of breakfast.

So, Yuuri had padded to the kitchen and warmed some water in a kettle on top of the stove for tea. Then he’d taken the mug out to the front porch and took a seat to watch the sun rise. It turned out to be one of the most beautiful things he’d ever seen. The pond that morning glimmered more than any man-made ice rink he’d ever seen as the sun crested the horizon and reflected off of it.

While Yuuri had skated on his fair share of outdoor rinks in his life, he’d never, ever once skated on a naturally frozen surface. Hasetsu didn’t have any still bodies of water, and while he probably could have found a lake in Michigan or this past year in Russia, it had honestly never occurred to him to try and find one for the experience in the midst of training.

But in that moment as he stared, mesmerized by the glossy, gleaming pond, Yuuri felt like it was the greatest tragedy that he’d never once followed skating back to its earliest roots.

And suddenly, the ice was calling his name.

Yuuri had quickly went inside to grab Viktor’s keys from beside the bed. Viktor and Makka had groaned a bit at the noise, but Yuuri had just shushed them and offered both a gentle kiss on the forehead before going out to the back of the car and digging out his skates. He had sat back down on the porch with them, carefully tying up the laces. He had kept glancing up at the ice, though, every few seconds, too transfixed by it to look away.

Then, carefully he’d made his way down to the pond.

And now, it was not as if Yuuri hadn’t considered safety. It wasn’t as if he’d been so taken up by the beauty of it that it hadn’t occurred to Yuuri that the ice might not be strong enough to hold him.

His heart had beat faster, and he’d taken nervous, careful steps onto the ice, half expecting his feet to fall through. But when they didn’t, he had skated out with slow, careful glides. Then, after a few testing minutes, as he had skated out from the shady edge into the sunlight, Yuuri had begun to relax.

He had started skating figures—mindlessly, gracefully. The ice was surprisingly smooth. Not quite the same level of polish that you could get on a man-made rink with a Zamboni, but smooth enough. The sun seemed to be polishing it before his eyes.

The sound of his blades on the ice had echoed in the silence of the morning, and Yuuri had never felt more at peace.

Then Yuuri had decided to try a jump. Just a double toe loop, nothing too strenuous. Just a little jump to let out some of the euphoria he was feeling.

And that was when it had happened.

“Yuuri!” he had heard a voice call out while he was in the air. “What are you doing?”

Viktor’s voice sounded panicked and Yuuri landed hard, trying to grind himself to a halt in the same instant, sticking his toe pick hard.

The crack that had resulted was deafening.

“Yuuri!” Viktor had cried again, and Yuuri had looked down with just enough time to see a crack in the ice below him. In a panic, he had tried to skate forward to Viktor, but that’s when he’d started falling.

He had plunged into the pond, the freezing water immediately sending a shock through his system. The pond, though not very big, was deeper than he’d imagined—as much as he struggled he only seemed to be pulled deeper and deeper by the weight of his skates and his heavy winter clothes soaking up the freezing water.

He had fought though, none the less, trying to find a way back up to the surface. Waiting for Viktor to somehow reach out and pull him back.

But neither had happened and Yuuri’s under oxygenated brain began to fade as Yuuri’s body went still.

Under the ice, it had actually been very quiet. It could have almost been a strange kind of peaceful. A quiet place to drift away.

Yuuri didn’t hear the quiet though this time.

Because as Yuuri had sunk down, the last fleeting memories of his life passing through his mind, Yuuri had sworn he could hear Viktor screaming—the imagined anguish deafening in his mind until it swallowed him entirely and everything went black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing in the past perfect is weird and annoying and dumb, but it felt grammatically confusing to go back and forth and I couldn't make it better so sorry and it is over now.
> 
> In otherwise though, comments and kudos etc. are much appreciated!


	2. When you Light a Candle, You also Cast a Shadow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Maybe everything was not lost. Yuri was still Yuri. Phichit was still Phichit._
> 
> _And Yuuri himself, well, while he certainly wasn’t 2014 Katsuki Yuuri, he was still himself._

“Yuuri?” he heard Celestino call out as he fell to the ground. “Yuuri, what’s wrong?”

Yuuri’s mind was spinning as he began to put the pieces together. This must be a dream. That must be it. Maybe he had fallen through the ice—but Viktor had probably pulled him out, somehow. He was in the hospital now, unconscious. He’d wake up with Viktor at his side, his fiancé lying curled up in the hospital bed next to him.

And this was a dream.

But now that he’d noticed the holes in it, he should wake up, right?

Yuuri squeezed his eyes shut and curled further into himself.

Any second now.

He waited for some kind of shift. A rush of air, a loss of consciousness, _something_ before slowly he’d wake up with the steady beep of a hospital monitor and the weight of Viktor’s hand grasping his.

Any second now.

But nothing seemed to happen, and in frustration, Yuuri gripped the skin of his arm and began to twist. The skin pinched painfully, but when Yuuri opened his eyes back up, he was still on the ground beside the rink.

This couldn’t be happening.

Panicked, Yuuri raised his head up and looked out across the arena desperately, although desperate for what Yuuri didn’t know.

It was then he found himself staring right at Viktor.

The Russian champion was standing maybe just a dozen steps away. Chris Giacometti stood beside him and was whispering something into Viktor’s ear, but Yuuri’s gaze zeroed on Viktor’s blue-green eyes, which were staring right at Yuuri.

For a moment, they just stared at each other. Viktor’s eyes were wide, but his expression was guarded, unreadable.

In another moment though, his view was cut off as someone crouched down in front of him.

Yuuri realized it was a medic, who was now talking to him gently, clearly trying to assess him. But Yuuri didn’t really care to be assessed. He barely knew what was going on himself.

He was back at Sochi, apparently. Back at that competition where everything had gone so wrong, but that had in the end turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to him. This was the competition that sent him back to Japan. The competition that led him to skate Viktor’s program at Ice Castle. The competition that led Viktor right to him.

But now, before he’d even had the opportunity to make a choice, things were irrevocably different.

Yuuri had skated his Grand Prix winning free skate program. His program that had also earned a gold at the Cup of China and silver at the World Championships. And he’d skated it as cleanly as he ever had.

Here. In Sochi. _In 2014_.

His life—if that’s what this was supposed to be now—was set on an uncharted course.

He couldn’t just quietly live his life over again, repeat everything exactly as it was, right up until he went to the cabin with Viktor and instead decide to stay in bed that morning. He couldn’t just quietly enjoy falling in love with Viktor all over again, but this time around make sure that their future together lasted decades.

He would never, ever have that life back. That life, that Viktor—it was gone.

The realization crashed over him and Yuuri fell forwards once again, his fists slamming against the ground in mourning.

The Viktor Nikiforov that he knew and loved, exactly as he was, was gone. He’d never exist in whatever cruel joke of a reality this was.

There was a possibility that in this new life, Viktor would never love him. That he and Viktor would never get together.

Yuuri’s mind continued to spin at the implications of the loss.

Even if he did decide to pursue Viktor again, it would now be a doomed relationship, wouldn’t it? Always destined to fail in the face of the relationship Yuuri couldn’t imagine he’d ever stop mourning. That even if they did try again here in this different, new reality, Yuuri would be harboring a secret so big the only thing it could ever do is drive them apart.

And that was all built on the assumption that Viktor would even want to or be able to fall in love with Yuuri as he was now in this reality. Relationships were built on time, and Yuuri’s grip on it had been ripped away.

Maybe—maybe this was hell.

Yuuri had been sent someplace to live out the rest of his life never being able to have the thing that mattered most. He’d live in anguish, knowing what he could have had, but it now always and forever being out of reach.

Yuuri had never been religious. He’d never thought too seriously about an afterlife, at least not in a way that had gone so far as to have built into any kind of real belief.

But whatever this was, it certainly hurt like hell.

*

“What if I’m just not actually that good?” Yuuri had asked Viktor once. “What if I really am just not good enough?”

It had been after that first Grand Prix series that Viktor had coached him through, and Yuuri still had doubts regarding his talent. Sure, he’d won silver, and that was a big deal, comparatively within the scope of his career. But in the scope of figure skating history, on the other hand, that didn’t mean all that much. Yuuri still had had doubts that he’d reached his peak, and it wasn’t anywhere near as high as he’d always hoped.

One silver medal in a Grand Prix Final did not essentially make for a legend. It didn’t technically even make for a champion.

But Viktor had of course cut off Yuuri’s spiraling thoughts, reaching out and tucking a finger under Yuuri’s chin, tilting Yuuri’s head up to look him in the eye.

Yuuri had shivered. Viktor had gotten so good at this, at knowing what Yuuri needed better than Yuuri knew himself—at making every touch, every word the most welcome surprise.

“Yuuri, how could you still not know?” Viktor had asked.

“What do you mean?” Yuuri had murmured, focusing in on Viktor’s lips. They were a bit thin, perhaps, but Yuuri knew them to still be more than soft enough.

“They’d called me a once in a generation, a once in a lifetime skater,” Viktor had whispered. “But you proved them all wrong. I’m the dime a dozen skater, Yuuri.”

Yuuri had gasped in shock at the boldness and just plain inaccuracy of the statement.

 However, before he’d had a chance to argue, Viktor had kissed him.

*

“Yuuri,” he heard Celestino’s voice calling out to him again. “We need to go to the kiss and cry,” his well, not former, just  _coach_  said, sounding a bit helpless.

Of course, on the contrary, the fact of the matter was that Yuuri was evidently having some kind of breakdown and he did not, actually,  _need_  to do anything.

If it had been his leg that had broken instead of his mind, they wouldn’t set the stretcher down on the bench of the kiss and cry and make Yuuri wait for his scores before being toted off in an ambulance.

But Yuuri understood, none the less, his coaches helplessness.

While Celestino had been fairly good at dealing with Yuuri’s anxiety, Yuuri could imagine that no one, no matter how kind or professional they may be, was ever prepared to watch as someone collapsed as Yuuri had. And certainly, no one was ever prepared to see a skater whose personal best was—well, that season for the free skate it had probably been all of about 160 points—skate a program like Yuuri just had. He knew that for certain.

The performance that Yuuri had just gave was worth over 200 points, Yuuri knew. Skaters didn’t beat their personal bests by forty, fifty points spontaneously. And if they were ever going to be in a position to do something like that, certainly their coach would know.

But Celestino didn’t know.

Celestino didn’t know anything about the two years of life that were now lost.

He didn’t know that Yuuri had had to start scoring over 200 points in his free skate regularly in the last season to keep up with Viktor, who despite a year off the ice continued to push his personal best farther and farther past the boundary he himself had finally broken the season before.

He didn’t know that for a season Viktor and Yuuri had taken the figure skating world by storm, pushing each other to score higher, to leave behind bigger and better legacies.

And then that’s when it hit Yuuri.

It was the 2014-2015 Grand Prix Final.

It was  _December 2014_.

And Viktor hadn’t broken the 200-point threshold and set a new and monumental world record until the European Championships that very winter.

Yuuri might have—he might have—out of absolutely nowhere—accidently—he very well may have accidently broken—

Yuuri couldn’t even form the thought, it was so completely and utterly ridiculous.

Suddenly, Yuuri thought he could have started laughing.

It was insane. Why was this happening? What god or deity or other power in the universe had thought this was a good idea?

There had to be rules, or something? For this kind of thing?

Yuuri didn’t laugh though, a wave of bone deep tiredness settling in instead. He did, however, make a sort of scoffing sound before sniffing a bit and wiping at his eyes.

He probably looked a sight. If by  _a sight_ you meant pathetic.

“Okay,” Yuuri said with a nod as he looked over at his coach. “To the kiss and cry, I guess.”

And with that, he pushed himself up from the ground and started to make his way around the rink. He kept his head down as he went, trying not to notice how every eye and camera in the room was following him.

It was almost comforting, the nauseated shame Yuuri felt as he realized how public his breakdown had been. Everything else might have changed, but at least Yuuri was still himself. Anxiety, self-doubt, and all.

Right before Yuuri could make it to the bench, Celestino caught up to him and pulled him aside, away from the cameras.

Yuuri looked at his coach in confusion but understood the second he caught sight of his coached worried expression, his eyes flitting back and forth between Yuuri and the cameras.

“Yuuri, is this, was that about your dog?” Celestino asked, his voice low as he leaned in close to Yuuri, clearly trying to establish some privacy between them from the outside world.

 _What,_  Yuuri thought, but than in an instant remembered—Vicchan had just died.

He’d gotten a call from his sister right before the competition to let him know.

That’s why this competition originally went so terribly.

It was strange to think that at this point Yuuri hadn’t been home in five years and had been so exhausted and homesick. Even just spending a year away from Japan to train in St. Petersburg with Viktor had sometimes left Yuuri with a kind of heart ache that no amount of Viktor or success at skating could fill.

Looking back now, Yuuri was in awe at that version of himself that had managed to push himself so far and so hard. It was no wonder he had been burning out.

“Um,” Yuuri said, realizing he had to say something in response.

It was then he realized that he would have to start to construct a lie. Although, maybe he didn’t need one—just an older truth.

“I guess,” Yuuri shrugged. “A little bit—but it’s also a lot of other things, you know? It’s just been—I’m tired,” Yuuri said vaguely. “And losing him, I just—I’ve been away so long.”

Celestino sighed.

“Maybe when you go to Japan for nationals you should go visit your hometown for a while. Take a bit of a mid-season break,” Celestino said, the offer kind and considerate. “Apparently you don’t need as much practice as I thought you did,” he added, and Yuuri could sense the hurt and confusion and concern, “We’re definitely going to need to talk about… that, Yuuri. But not now, we’re holding up the competition.”

Yuuri nodded sympathetically, not quite sure what else to do, but certainly not ready enough to try and start explaining himself anyway. Then, together they finally went over to the kiss and cry.

The scores came in shortly after they sat down.

The numbers popped up on the scoreboard and the announcer read it off, and the strange, confused applause returned.

_203.8_

It was admittedly the lowest his program had been scored out of all the times he’d skated it, even though Yuuri knew this was one of his best performances. Yuuri could understand why the judges weren’t being generous, though. This was their first time giving such high marks, and they were giving them not to the skater they had expected might earn them. Because in the other timeline, Yuuri had become a favorite alongside Viktor. Here, he was still no-one. In fact, in this timeline, anyone who ever complimented his skating would still often toss in the phrase “chronically underscored.”

But the insanity of everything aside, Yuuri had done it.

The 2014 version of Katsuki Yuuri was now a world record holder. And even if Viktor went on in a few minutes and snatched the record away, Yuuri would always and forever be the first figure skater to score more than 200-points in the free skate.

And if actual 2014 Katsuki Yuuri were sitting there in the kiss and cry, camera’s pushing in around him, Celestino trying his best to get over his shock to congratulate him, this moment would have been a dream come true.

A moment like this was everything that the 2014 version of Yuuri had ever wanted, ever dreamed of.

But instead, the 2017 version of Katsuki Yuuri sat on the bench staring blankly ahead thinking only of how much he had just lost.

*

_Breaking News • BBC Sports_

**Japanese Skater becomes First to Break 200-points in Free Skate at Grand Prix Final**

13 Dec 2014

Yuuri Katsuki, 23, a skater from Japan, has just become the first figure skater to score above 200-points for the free skate program in an ISU competition. Katsuki, whose previous personal best was a score of 167.2, blew the crowds and judges away on Saturday at the Grand Prix Final in Sochi, Russia with his performance.  Scoring a 203.8, Katsuki passed a threshold in figure skating scoring for the free skate program that was expected to be surpassed soon—not by Katsuki, however, but by reigning World Champion Russian men’s singles skater Viktor Nikiforov.

Nikiforov became the first figure skater to score above 100-points in the short program last February in the Olympics, also in Sochi. He then went on to be the first to score a combined score of about 300-points at the ISU World Championship in that March. Nikiforov was anticipated to become the first to pass the 200-point threshold for the free program this season, though debate occurred whether he’d aim to break the record at the World Championships or knock the record out earlier in the season.

Katsuki’s record on Saturday, though, may have forced Nikiforov’s hand, as he also scored above 200-points, going several skaters after Katsuki. Even still, his score of 202.4 did not surpass Katsuki’s new record. It did, however, allow Nikiforov to hold onto his title for the fifth consecutive year as taking short program scores into consideration, Nikiforov outscored Katsuki by a considerable margin. Nikiforov, with a combined score of 304.6 secured the gold medal. Katsuki, with a combined score of 268.9 placed silver. Christophe Giacometti from Switzerland took the bronze with a combined score of 259.4.

_This story is developing._

*

Yuuri stood below Viktor on the podium wanting to be anywhere else in the world.

He’d tried to get out of the rest of the competition, in all honesty, but hadn’t been able to. Celestino had given him a  _look_ , that even in spite of everything, Yuuri knew well. He’d quickly resigned himself to having to stick it out to the bitter end.

Instead of sitting and watching his competitors skate though, he had managed to slip away on the excuse that he was going to the toilet and then he proceeded to camp out in the stall for a solid half an hour until he’d received far too many texts from Celestino worrying about him and had accepted that he needed to return to the rink sooner or later.

He’d come back out just in time to see Viktor sitting at the kiss and cry, his face blown up on a jumbotron, while his scores were being announced.

“You missed Viktor’s free skate,” Celestino had whispered to him unhelpfully as Yuuri came to stand beside him. “Are you feeling a bit better?”

Celestino had probably assumed that Yuuri had gone to the toilets to cry some more. Which was fair. It’s not as if Yuuri hadn’t done plenty of that at this competition the first time around.

Actually, Yuuri had spent a lot of time trying to find toilets and supply closets and empty corners of locker rooms to cry in at this point in his career.

Yuuri turned to Celestino and offered him the smallest quirked lip of a smile and a shrug, and Celestino sighed.

Then a roar went through the arena.

_202.4_

Yuuri felt a little nauseated. Viktor hadn’t gotten that score in the original version of this competition. Viktor, in response to Yuuri’s program must have pushed harder on his. Had he—had he been trying to take back the record?

Had 2014 Viktor Nikiforov failed at beating Katsuki Yuuri?

Yuuri certainly hoped not. He hoped this was just Viktor’s strategy, wanting to prove that he’d be back at the World Championship, with bigger and better things than anyone could ever imagine

But another part of Yuuri knew that that very well might have been what happened. The fact of the matter was that Viktor had never really peaked, still continuing to outdo himself and his records even after a season in retirement. And well, Yuuri had beaten 2017 Viktor at the Grand Prix.

Of course, thankfully, Viktor still had the gold that day, Yuuri noticed quickly. Yuuri’s short program had still been disastrous and the all of one-and-a-half-point difference between their scores did certainly not make up for it.

But that’s when Yuuri noticed something even more alarming.

“Yuuri, you’ve won silver,” Celestino said quietly.

And apparently, he had. Apparently, Chris’s free skate score was only about average for him that season and combined with a very solid but otherwise unremarkable short program score, Yuuri had edged him out by only a few points.

So now, here he stood, right next to Viktor on the podium, a silver medal feeling incredibly heavy around his neck.

“And together now, for a photo!” a photographer called out after they’d stood on their separate steps for what was apparently long enough. Yuuri made to step off the podium, but instead, Viktor caught him by the arm.

Yuuri looked back, his eyes wide.

“Why don’t you join me up here?” Viktor asked, and Yuuri could only gape. “Come on, I don’t bite.”

But the thing is, Viktor did bite. Viktor had, in fact, bitten Yuuri several times, technically speaking. But  _oh god_ , Yuuri thought, this train of thought was not at all appropriate and the last stream of memories he needed running through his head in the face of a Viktor Nikiforov who barely knew him.

Viktor held out his arms widely, beckoning Yuuri and Chris up to join him. Chris stepped up easily, a smile a bit too amused on his face.

Yuuri stepped up slowly, leaving as much space as he could between himself and Viktor, although, it wasn’t much on the narrow step.

Yuuri found himself cringing as Viktor wrapped an arm around Yuuri’s waist, his fingers lightly touching the small of Yuuri’s back. He thought he could feel as Viktor looked at him for a moment, but Yuuri couldn’t bring himself to confirm. Instead he stared straight ahead.

“Smile!”

Yuuri looked out at the camera, his expression blank.

*

_[Image Description: Viktor Nikiforov_

_stands on the middle stair of a podium,_

_smiling wide, with a gold medal around_

_his neck. Two other skaters stand on the_

_same step at his side. To his left, Yuuri_

_Katsuki_   _stands, face passive, with silver._

_To his right is Chris Giacometti, smiling_

_and winking, with bronze.]_

Liked by Christophe-gc and 38,392 others

 **v-nikiforov**  new medal, new trio!

.

.

#figureskating #gold #gpf #freeskate #medals

#podiumtrio #seeyouatworlds

#sochi #russia #menssingles #athlete

                                  **Comments**

 **christophe-gc**  we love us a good surprise, don’t we?

 **phichit+chu** i will never stop screaming

 **skatefan-tori**  … but bold and in all caps

 **cara-skates**  !!! but bold and in all caps   

 **iceicebaby98**  ??? but bold and in all caps

 **vn-fanboy**  I see you guys being cute and all

                but someone has got to say it:

                …..WTF??? JUST!!! HAPPENED!?!?

 **sk8ter4lyfe**  okay, but why does yuuri look like... well?

Load more comments

*

_Yuuri!_

_What the fuck?_

_Yuuuurri!_

When Yuuri had finally managed to free himself from the medal ceremony, he’d found his old phone in the pocket of his team jacket.

Or, well, it wasn’t his old phone anymore, now it was just his phone.

He’d made the mistake though of unlocking it, only to find that he had dozens upon dozens of messages. Many of them were from Phichit. Actually, dozens and dozens of them were from Phichit.

“I’m going to run to the toilets again, coach,” Yuuri said as he and Celestino made their way back to the locker rooms.

Celestino looked like he wanted to argue but, thankfully, didn’t.

“Okay, but there is a press conference in half an hour, and I need us to have at least a few minutes before that to talk alone, okay?”

Yuuri nodded and tried to look sympathetic but didn’t waste any time before rushing to the solace of a toilet stall.

He collapsed down on to the toilet and let out a long sigh.

Just then, his phone started to ring.

Yuuri looked down, startled, to see it was Phichit calling.

And Yuuri didn’t know why, in all honesty, he did this, but for some reason, Yuuri answered it.

“Hey, Phichit,” Yuuri said.

“Oh my god, you answered. I kind of wasn’t expecting you to answer!” Phichit practically shouted into the phone.”

Yuuri said nothing.

“I just wanted to, well, congratulate you.”

“No you didn’t,” Yuuri sighed. “You wanted the inside scoop first, live from the source.”

Phichit huffed indignantly and Yuuri couldn’t help but smile at the familiar theatrics of his slightly younger than usual friend. Phichit, well, he was the same now as he was in Yuuri’s time. Their relationship hadn’t changed much over the past few years. Obviously, the transition of Yuuri living with the Thai skater to living in Japan and Russia with Viktor was a change, but whenever they were together, their friendship picked right back up exactly the same as it always had been.

And that was comforting, in a world where everything else was suddenly so different.

“Okay, maybe. But those two things aren’t mutually exclusive.”

“I suppose not,” Yuuri murmured. “Well, thanks then, I guess.”

The line was quiet for a moment.

“So?” Phichit finally asked, drawing out the word expectantly.

“So what?” Yuuri asked, being purposefully obtuse.

“How?” Phichit asked. “How? What? When? Why?”

Yuuri sighed.

He’d been… well he’d been trying to craft his story in his mind. As tempting as it was to just, you know, tell the truth and then maybe get to spend some time in a nice quiet hospital, heavily medicated.

And the fact that in the chaos of everything he’d thankfully managed to just kind of smile and shrug his way along. But now, people would want answers and explanations. The reckoning was coming, but Yuuri, well, he was just so tired.

“I’ve just been so tired, Phichit,” Yuuri said quietly, easily as it was nearly the truth. “My career, it’s almost over. I’m 23 and I’m not Viktor Nikiforov. I don’t have four, five more years in me. I just, I guess I kind of thought, well, fuck it.”

Then suddenly, there was pounding on the toilet stall door and screaming in Russian.

“Yuuri, what’s going on?” Phichit asked.

Yuuri furrowed his brow and stared at the door that was shaking under the impact.

“I—I have to go, Phichit. We’ll talk more later, okay?”

“Yuuri!” Phichit cried, but Yuuri hung up.

Then carefully standing as far back from the door as he could in the tiny stall, Yuuri reached forward and unlocked the door.

In an instant, the door flew open with a bang, and behind it stood fourteen-year-old Yuri Plisetsky.

“You cannot retire! What the fuck?” the teen shouted, in English this time.

“Language, Yuri,” Yuuri chided without thinking. It was something he’d said to the now 17-year-old Yuuri from his time at least three times a day. It was something of an inside joke at the St. Petersburg rink. They’d for a while even had a swear jar, or several actually, but after Yuri had smashed the ninth replacement, Viktor and Yuuri had given up.

The comment did, at least, successfully shut the teen up for a moment.

“Ty che, blyad?” Yuri spat. “You cannot retire until I beat you!”

“Saying it in Russian doesn’t make it anymore okay,” Yuuri said with a sigh.

“How did you—?” Yuri asked, but then seemed to abandon the question. “You have to tell me you will not retire until I’ve beaten you!” Yuri insisted instead.

Yuuri pursed his lips and looked at the younger version of the Russian teen he’d come to know quite well. Yuri—well—Yuri never changed, not really. While he did, in a way, eventually soften a bit to Yuuri and even Viktor, he was still just as stubborn and volatile at seventeen as he was at fourteen. He certainly did not mellow with age

.And that, well, it was one of the best things that Yuuri had discovered all day. Maybe everything was not lost. Yuri was still Yuri. Phichit was still Phichit.

And Yuuri himself, well, while he certainly wasn’t 2014 Katsuki Yuuri, he was still himself.

He knew Yuri, still. And while he’d inevitably never come to have the same history he’d had with his Yuri, everything didn’t have to be lost. Yuuri had no idea how he was going to recover from losing his Viktor. He had no idea how he was going to build a life in this brave new world. But, this seemed like an okay enough place to start.

“Do you have an Instagram?” Yuuri asked, although he knew the answer.

“What?”

”An Instagram, we could follow each other,” Yuuri shrugged.

“I—okay—you’ll follow me?” Yuri stammered.

“Sure,” Yuuri said, unlocking is phone and quickly finding Yuri’s account and pressing the follow button. “Your cat is very cute,” Yuuri said, clicking open a picture of Yuri’s cat and holding it out for Yuri to see.

“Potya?” Yuri said, but was cut off as the door flew open.

“Yuri!” a voice that Yuuri would recognize anywhere cried before speaking quickly in Russian. Yuri’s attention was drawn quickly away. “Yuri?”

At that moment, Viktor Nikiforov had made his way over across the room to Yuri and stopped dead in his tracks as he realized Yuuri was standing, still in the toilet stall, a few feet in front of the junior champion. Yuuri stared at the other man with wide eyes.

Viktor blinked back at him, eyes looking at him without the fondness Yuuri had come to treasure, face guarded as it so often was with people who didn’t know him personally.

And Yuuri felt like he’d been punched in the stomach.

“Oh!” Viktor said, clearly surprised. “Yuuri!”

“I should get going,” Yuuri said immediately, stepping out of the stall and sliding past the two Russians.

“Wait!” Viktor said, but Yuuri didn’t stop. He couldn’t. It hurt too much. Yuri may still be Yuri, Phichit may still be Phichit, but with Viktor, two years had changed everything between them. The path Yuuri had found himself on was clearly once in a lifetime.

Yuuri quickly left the toilets without so much as looking back.

*

“Yuuri!” Celestino called out as Yuuri quickly made his way down the hallway. “We need to talk.”

Yuuri nodded, following Celestino away from the other skaters who were mulling around the athletes area of the arena to a quiet nook.

“You promised me—that was the one contingent—that you would not do jumps,” was the first thing Celestino said, his voice little more than a whisper.

“What?” Yuuri floundered for a second, but then soon enough realized the explanation that Celestino must have built up in his head.

Last year, from this time at least, when Yuuri’s anxiety suddenly started getting worse, Celestino had quietly given Yuuri keys to the rink for Yuuri to use after the rink was closed. Sometimes, Yuuri would stop by late at night, after the rink had closed for the evening, and skate for an hour or so, free from prying eyes.

The one contingent though, was that Yuuri was not allowed to do jumps and he had to keep his phone physically on him for safety purposes. Yuuri could do figures, run his programs with marked jumps, whatever it was he needed to do to his heart’s content, but he could not risk hurting himself and ending up lying on the ice all night until someone found him in the morning.

But Celestino must have decided that Yuuri had betrayed that and had been training more intensely by himself.

And it was, well, it was the only thing that made sense really. No one was ever going to believe that that had been the first time Yuuri had ever really tried the quads that he had just done flawlessly. At this point in time, Yuuri had a rather shaky but technically ratified quad toe loop and was just beginning to work on the quad salchow. This program, though, had had two quad toe loops in the first half, and then the salchow and the flip in the second half. And Yuuri had landed them all as close to perfect as any skater ever did them.

“I—” Yuuri started, but then took a deep breath. He’d have to commit. “I just, I guess I’ve been feeling like I don’t have a lot to lose, anymore. It didn’t matter, you know?” he said with a sigh.

“Yuuri—” Celestino said, but Yuuri cut him off, deciding to continue.

“I never—I’d never intended to skate that program, it mostly existed in my head. It was just kind of a fantasy. How I wish I could skate if I were good enough. I’d practiced it a bit, mostly marking jumps or downgrading them. I—” Yuuri paused, taking another steadying breath and looking down at his shoes nervously. “I don’t know where that flip came from today. I shouldn’t have done it, I don’t know what I was thinking. But I just—I wanted to do well, for once, in spite of everything. And if I did it, if somehow, I did it, I knew it might just be enough,” Yuuri finished, his voice small.

He looked up again, cautiously, to try and gauge the reaction on Celestino’s face. It seemed like a convincing lie, based on 2014 Yuuri.

But Yuuri supposed, it didn’t really matter how convincing the lie was, because Yuuri couldn’t think of a more convincing truth.

He imagined that he’d be called in for a blood test shortly after this competition, of course, to rule out the only other lie that might have been convincing to people. But even doping didn’t really make sense. Doping was a more long-term performance enhancer, and until today, Yuuri was as mediocre as ever.

“And it was,” Celestino said simply after a long moment. “It was amazing, Yuuri. Worthy of the score.”

“You aren’t mad at me?”

“Oh,” Celestino said. “I’m furious. But, you just made history, Yuuri. I might as well give you half a shot at enjoying it, because so far you don’t really seem to be,” he said, worry back in his eyes. “But do expect when we get back to Detroit I’m going to run you into the ground with drills, see how much this hidden athleticism of yours can actually withstand. You’re going to have to step up your game even more, I’m sure, if you want a shot at stealing gold from Viktor at the World Championships.”

“What?” Yuuri found himself asking.

“Yuuri, if we get your short program up to the same caliber as the free, you’re going to be a real threat.”

Yuuri’s mind span. The idea, the idea of going from being a team with Viktor to being… actual rivals? He hadn’t really thought that far in the chaos of the past few hours of this new life. But the thought after it was introduced to him made him feel sicker than ever.

Of course this last season they had competed against one another, but everyone kind of knew how it would play out, as much as Yuuri and Viktor pretended they didn’t. Of course Yuuri would take gold at the Grand Prix. Of course Viktor would go take gold at the European Championships and Yuuri at the cup of China. Of course they’d compete against each other once again at Worlds, and Viktor would retire with gold.

Nothing was as guaranteed here though, at least as far as the world was concerned.

And, in an instant, Yuuri realized that he didn’t even really want to beat Viktor. Not this Viktor or any. Yuuri already knew he could. He knew he could.

“We should probably get to the press conference,” Yuuri said.

Celestino looked at him with eyebrows raised but nodded.

In Yuuri’s time, Yuuri hadn’t been skating to win anymore, or to prove himself, not really. He was skating, well, he was skating because it was what he and Viktor did together. Because Viktor loved to see Yuuri skate, and Yuuri loved to skate for Viktor.

But here, he and Viktor weren’t a team anymore.

And without that, it suddenly occurred to him, Yuuri wasn’t sure if he had a reason to keep skating.

*

“Things are shaking up today in the figure skating world,” a woman in a nice pantsuit announced, an ESPN logo behind her. “An impressive and historic record was broken today at the Grand Prix Finals in Sochi, Russia, but not by the reigning world champion, the Russian Viktor Nikiforov as expected, but by underdog Yuuri Katsuki from Japan. We’re going now, live, to the press conference to hear firsthand from the skaters themselves about the upset.”

On a platform, a wide-angle camera captured the men’s singles medalists—Viktor Nikiforov, Yuuri Katsuki, and Chris Giacometti—sitting before microphones at a long table. Viktor smiled widely, while Yuuri and Chris both looked more pensive.

“Mr. Nikiforov, how does it feel to have claimed your fifth consecutive Grand Prix title?” a journalist asked.

“Good,” Viktor said simply, and the room laughed. “It was exciting for me to have a reason to fight a bit harder than I usually have to do to defend it. No offense, Chris,” Viktor said, turning to the other skater.

“Eh,” Chris said with a shrug, “Considering the circumstances, I can’t say I’m offended.”

“Mr. Katsuki,” a reporter butted in suddenly, “A lot of us don’t even know where to begin in regard to your performance today. Many feel it should not have been possible. Can you speak to what brought you here, what went into that performance?”

Yuuri said nothing for a moment, looking ahead tiredly.

“I think it was sort of a, what’s the expression? A hail Mary,” Yuuri finally responded. “My career has been floundering, I knew I was nearing retirement, not even by choice, but just by falling into obscurity. I wanted to go out with a bang, skate the program as I always wished I could. I did not expect to perform it as well as I did. I typically have a lot of performance anxiety that can make my programs sloppy and discourage me from trying more difficult jumps. I think today though I was too desperate to be afraid. I didn’t feel like I had anything left to lose.”

“But surely all thoughts of retirement have been pushed from your mind after today?” the reporter followed up. Yuuri could tell it was supposed to be a fairly light-hearted question.

Yuuri took another long pause, looking out across the room with a pensive expression.

“I don’t know, actually,” he finally said. “I was actually thinking that this might be my best shot at leaving on a good foot. It might be best to keep what happened today as a once in a lifetime performance. I don’t have anything left to prove.”

At the statement, there were a few gasps throughout the room, but the loudest was caught by Viktor Nikiforov’s microphone.

“No,” the Russian champion said almost immediately, his voice barely above a whisper. Then he turned to look at the Japanese skater, who looked back at him with wide, shocked eyes. “You can’t. Please reconsider.”

Yuuri gaped, his mouth opening and then shutting a few times without a response passing his lips.

“Well, uh,” Yuuri said finally, turning away from Viktor. “If there are no more questions,” he stammered.

And with that, Yuuri Katsuki pushed himself away from the table and ran off the platform, disappearing out the side exit in a flash, the cameras panning to follow his exit.

After it became clear though that he was not coming back, the camera’s panned back to the platform just in time to catch Viktor Nikiforov still standing up from his chair, motionless, with an arm outstretched, reaching in the direction that Yuuri had fled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I also always like to send out a general invitation talk to me in the comments— I am a v lonely person who recieves great joy from hearing from you!
> 
> (You don’t even have to compliment my fic if you don’t want to although that’s obviously appreciated).


	3. Are you Betting On or Against Yourself?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “But really,” Viktor continued, his tone serious, “Do you not love skating anymore?”
> 
> Yuuri shook his head, nuzzling his nose against Viktor’s collar bone.
> 
> “No, I mean,” Yuuri floundered for a moment. “I mean, _yes_ , of course I do. I always will. But I love you more.”

It occurred to Yuuri, as he sat on the shuttle bus back from the arena to the hotel, that he did not in fact remember what room he was staying in.

He also almost definitely did not have a key.

He _technically_ didn’t even remember what hotel he was staying at, for that matter, but thankfully he knew that at most competitions most athletes stayed in the same hotel for a variety of logistical and security purposes. As he’d fled the arena after, or well, more likely in the middle of, the press conference, he’d noticed a pack of junior skaters boarding a hotel shuttle. With his head ducked and his shoulders hunched as if he were trying to turtle his head into his body, he had quickly hopped on after them. He’d flashed his athlete ID badge that hung around his neck to the driver before carefully zipping the potentially damning identification into his jacket and took a seat in the back of the bus.

And of course what he could _probably_ do is text Celestino and just ask to meet up with him to get into their room, but at this point his coach was probably, well, beyond frustrated with him. Yuuri had, after all, just announced his retirement without having so much as run it by the man beforehand. It wasn’t exactly a particularly respectful thing to leave a coach out of the loop of.

So for the time being, Yuuri would avoid Celestino. If he could, he’d avoid everyone else on the planet too. He didn’t need anyone to tell him what exactly it was he’d just done or give him their interpretations on any of it. Yuuri understood better than anyone could possibly even imagine, he was sure.

The shuttle arrived at the hotel and Yuuri got off and quickly made his way to reception, anxious to get a new key and be out of the bustling lobby.

“Um,” Yuuri said awkwardly as he approached the woman at the front desk. “Hello,” he said, praying that for an occasion like an international skating competition most of the people on staff that weekend spoke English.

Besides his wide vocabulary of swear words taught by Yuri, endearments taught by Viktor, and some very basic phrases, Yuuri’s Russian had not gotten particularly good over his year in St. Petersburg. He was already bilingual, Russian was another entire new alphabet, and he’d just, frankly, really been too busy to learn. He had planned to try harder to learn someday, maybe after his own retirement, to surprise Viktor, but apparently that someday was now never.

“Hello, how can I help you?” the woman at the desk responded and Yuuri let out a sigh of relief.

“Can I get a new key to my room? I, er, misplaced mine,” Yuuri said, adding a quick polite smile as an afterthought.

“Okay, can I have your name and room number?”

“I, uh, my name is Yuuri Katsuki,” he said, quietly, looking around a bit nervously. “And I, uh, think my room was on the third floor?”

He didn’t really—that was a flat out lie. But the building only had six, so guessing the third gave him the highest chance of at least probably being kind of close.

“Can I have a photo ID?”

“Uh?” Yuuri said, knowing he didn’t have one.

“Like a photo identification card or a passport,” the woman said, slower this time, now clearly thinking it was Yuuri who didn’t speak much English. “I need to confirm your identity.”

“No, I uh,” Yuuri floundered. His passport was probably in the hotel room safe. He had a student ID from the university in Detroit and an old government ID from Japan that was probably expired at this point in his wallet, probably, but Yuuri had ever so thoughtfully decided to abandon his backpack and gear at the arena, hoping that Celestino would pick them up for him. All he had on him now was his phone and an, “Oh!” Yuuri remembered.

Quickly he unzipped his jacket and pulled out the lanyard that hung around his neck with his competitor ID and arena pass for the competition.

“Sorry, sir, I need a government ID. Do you have a passport?” she repeated.

Yuuri wanted to slam his head into the desk at that.

“It’s in the safe in the room probably, can someone just like, take me up and unlock the door and I’ll grab the ID and show them or something? You have to have some kind of policy for this kind of situation,” Yuuri bartered, his anxiety in the busy lobby making him bold—or maybe just desperate.

“Oh, uh,” the woman asked, looking at him a bit wide eyed. “I could as the manager if we could do something like that,” she said. “With the competition we were told to be extra careful this weekend with security protocols,” she added

Yuuri sighed. He knew none of this was the woman’s fault.

“Alright,” he said. “It’s alright.”

“I can call him, if you want to wait over in the lobby, I can send someone over to get you when we’ve found a solution.”

Yuuri glanced over at the lobby seating area. It was full of people. A man talking on a cell phone. A young woman texting. A few more junior skaters huddled together giggling.

“Is there somewhere quieter I can wait?” Yuuri asked.

The woman’s brow furrowed.

“There is the hotel restaurant and bar around the corner, if you prefer,” she said, pointing across the lobby to a hallway.

Yuuri sighed. He didn’t have any money on him to buy anything, and it probably wasn’t any less crowded.

“No, it’s alright,” Yuuri sighed. “I’ll just be over there, I guess,” Yuuri said, cocking his head in the direction of the seating area.

Keeping his head ducked down, Yuuri made his way over to a corner that was obscured by a fairly decently sized potted plant. He then slid down against the wall until he was seated on the floor and pulled out his phone, intent on trying to pass himself off as some extraneous team member who was bored out of his mind instead of the senior men’s silver medalist and current free skate world record holder. He quickly found some old game that he’d nearly forgotten ever existed, even though it was probably still all the rage right now and began to try and remember the rules and knock through a level.

He’d just successfully passed level 268 (where 2014 Yuuri had found the time to play the first 267 levels, Yuuri didn’t know) when he noticed a pair of feet standing in front of him.

Yuuri decided to take the approach of ignoring them and hoping that they, and whatever person was attached to them, would walk away.

“Yuuri,” a voice eventually called, “Why, what on earth is the men’s singles silver medalist doing hiding behind a fern? Shouldn’t he be out celebrating?” the voice came, a bit teasing.

Yuuri wasn’t amused though.

He looked up tiredly at Christophe Giacometti. He’d recognized the voice instantly.

“Couldn’t I say a similar thing of you?” he asked Chris.

The Swiss skater stood, towering over him. He must have gotten out of the press conference and made his way back to the hotel. How he’d spotted Yuuri, Yuuri didn’t know.

“I am on my way to get ready to head out for the night. You are the one sitting on the floor of a hotel lobby, darling.”

Yuuri sighed.

“I’ve lost my key, but they won’t let me get a new one without a photo ID and Celestino has my wallet and my passport is in the room,” Yuuri explained. “The receptionist is talking to the manager.”

“Doesn’t your coach have his key?” Chris asked, but Yuuri could tell that he already had an idea of the answer.

“We got separated,” Yuuri said evasively.

“Ah,” Chris smiled knowingly, “Fleeing the press will do that to you.”

“I wasn’t fleeing the press,” Yuuri defended, but instantly felt like he’d been caught in some kind of elaborate trap.

“Hm, yes, you were fleeing a certain Russian champion, I believe.”

“I wasn’t,” Yuuri defended, but Chris just looked down at him, an eyebrow raised.

Yuuri sighed again.

“He was being ridiculous,” he muttered.

For a moment, Chris looked a little surprised at the comment, but then he laughed.

“ _Him?”_ Chris chuckled. “I think he’s coping well, considering how ridiculous _you’re_ being!”

“ _Me?”_ Yuuri asked, his voice squeaking.

Before Chris could say anything else though, the woman from the front desk appeared, a man standing beside her.

“I’m sorry for the inconvenience, Mr. Katsuki,” the man said. “Anna will take you up to your room right away.”

Yuuri looked up at the wall of people that were now standing around him and quickly scuttled up from the ground, surprised at the sudden turn in his customer service experience.

“Oh, uh, thanks, I—” Yuuri paused as he realized a flaw in his plan to prove his identity, “Oh well, I actually probably don’t know the combination of the safe, either,” Yuuri said.

The man, presumably the manager, furrowed his brow at the out of context comment, but the woman, Anna, quickly spoke.

“Oh no, do not worry about it. We know who you are Mr. Katsuki,” she said with a smile.

_Oh. Oh, no._

“Right,” Yuuri murmured, not pleased to find that the news of himself had apparently already spread as far as to reach non-ice-skating people like hotel staff and had been spread in such a way that led them to believe Yuuri was now an important person. “Okay, well, thanks.”

The woman smiled politely in response.

“Well, goodbye Chris,” Yuuri said, turning back to the Swiss man.

“You should come out with us tonight,” Chris said in response, “To celebrate.”

Yuuri just stared at Chris for a moment before turning away, making his thoughts on that suggestion obvious.

“That’s why I didn’t ask!” Chris called after him. “But you should.”

Yuuri ignored the other skater and followed Anna over to the elevators.

One arrived eventually, although not quickly enough for Yuuri’s tastes.

Yuuri didn’t failed to notice how she quietly pressed the fifth-floor button but thankfully made no comment about how Yuuri had been wrong earlier.

The elevator arrived at the fifth floor and they stepped out and made their way down the hallway. They stopped in front of room 564.

Yuuri repeated the number to himself a few times silently, trying to remember it as Anna stuck a key card into the door and opened it.

“Here you go, Mr. Katsuki,” she said, holding out the key card to Yuuri with one hand and holding open the door with the other. “Can I get anything else for you?”

Yuuri took the card.

“No, thank you,” he said quickly. “I’m really alright. Thanks for all your help.”

She nodded and smiled again politely.

“Enjoy your stay,” she said and Yuuri, taking it as a sign he was allowed to end this interaction, quickly slid into the hotel room and let the door fall shut behind him.

He stood in the mouth of the room.

It was strange to see the remnants of his former self in it—his suitcase in the corner, a stuffed hamster that Phichit had gifted him years ago and he took to every competition he went to without his friend and rinkmate resting on one of the freshly made beds, a book he remembered trying to read but never finishing sitting on the night stand.

It was strange to think that some other version of himself had lived through his life just up to a few hours ago.

He wondered for a moment what happened to that version of himself.

Had he been the one to die? Had he been sent somewhere else too, and infinite loop of Yuuri’s shifting into neighboring realities, infinite iterations of himself waking up in not quite right lives?

He didn’t really care to think about it though, Yuuri decided. The semantics of reality seemed meaningless outside of his current experience. That was inevitably what he’d have to deal with.

And currently in Yuuri’s reality he felt numb. Needing to do something, he decided to begin to undress to have a shower. He stripped naked right there in the middle of the room, hoping that Celestino wouldn’t arrive back any time soon, and went to dig through his suitcase. The air was cold on his skin and it reminded Yuuri that he was still in Russia in all technicality. He’d known of course that he was in Sochi, but that had seemed like an abstract checkpoint on the course of a nearly forgotten life.

But Yuuri couldn’t think about Russia without thinking of Viktor. The two were impossibly tied.

Yuuri tried to shove all the thoughts that were creeping into his mind aside though and instead focused on the suitcase before him. It was filled with clothes Yuuri hadn’t seen in ages. Yuuri pulled out an old, soft t-shirt that had been retired to scraps long ago now in Yuuri’s time after holes had begun to wear into it. Now though it was still in one piece and the thread bare softness was soothing under his fingertips. He then pulled out a pair of sweatpants to match before walking over to the bathroom.

Yuuri dropped the clothes onto the counter and stepped into the shower.

He didn’t even think about it—he’d assumed that if anything was going to have remained unchanged it would be the basics. How to feed himself. How to use a toilet. How to bathe himself.

But then he turned on the tab and a stream of icy cold water pelted down onto him and in a moment Yuuri was somewhere else, task at hand entirely forgotten and suddenly undoable. Yuuri sank to the ground, gasping for air. Memories flashed in his mind.

Of cold so cold it hurt.

Of light streaming in through the surface of the ice that he couldn’t get back to.

Of struggling like his body had been wrapped in chains with weights tied to his ankles instead of just a waterlogged sweater and a pair of ice skates.

Of screaming.

Soon though the water turned from ice to scalding and Yuuri was pulled back into himself to discover he was now sitting on the shower floor, knees pulled into his chest. It was then he realized he was crying. Not the dry, heaving sobs and misting eyes like he’d cried at the competition, but the impossibly wet, snotty kind of sobbing.

The water was too hot now, stinging his skin, but Yuuri ignored it. The burn reminded him of where he was—far from the cold of the frozen pond, but just as far if not farther from the gentle warmth of Viktor’s arms.

*

Viktor and Yuuri had always made a lot of bets. Or otherwise been involved in them one way or another, whether they were naming the stakes, or if they were what was being bet on, or whether they were part of the prize of someone else’s.

But, their bets were always a little safe—bets that were more like a technicality of a random universe than something with any actual odds.

Yuri had found that out quickly when he’d first bet with Yuuri over who Viktor would choreograph. Yuri had chased Viktor all the way to Hasetsu, worked his ass off trying to find his agape, only to realize that Viktor was always going to choose Yuuri.

And that’s exactly what it always was. Viktor always would choose Yuuri and Yuuri would always choose Viktor. No matter what the circumstances, they always bet on each other. And so, even if one of them lost, like that first Grand Prix final where Yuuri had to settle for silver, instead of the gold Viktor had bet on, it was okay in the end. Because Viktor still chose Yuuri. He didn’t choose gold—just Yuuri. Gold only mattered if Yuuri was winning it, never ever the other way around.

“Beautiful, zolotse!” Viktor had cheered at the first practice after Yuuri’s second Grand Prix Final.

Despite their very public kiss and pseudo-engagement, Yuuri and Viktor had still been rather chaste, tip toeing around any real conversations about or implications of their relationship. Yuuri was still too terrified that the other man would slip out of his grasp, would one day say to him, “Oh, you thought I was serious?” and then pack up and leave. And Viktor was too busy trying to be everything to dive to deep into being any one thing in particular to Yuuri.

Of course, that dynamic was never going to make for a real long-lasting relationship, and something had to begin to shift at some point. Yuuri had of course been fearing some kind of catastrophe—a major fight after he’d been driven half mad trying to figure out if Viktor really loved him.

But, by some miracle the shift occurred gracefully, naturally, perfectly—Yuuri and Viktor just slotting into place in a life just big enough for two.

“What does that mean?” Yuuri had asked, sliding to a stop on the ice in front of Viktor.

Viktor had said that word before, a few times now in fact, but Yuuri had been too afraid to ask, and even more afraid to try and look it up and end up with the wrong translation and having hope or heartache where there needn’t have been any.

Viktor had cocked his head in that way that he did sometimes that reminded Yuuri of a puppy dog.

“My gold,” Viktor had said simply, as if Yuuri should have known it from connotation.

“But I haven’t won gold yet,” Yuuri had pointed out, because of course he did.

Viktor had laughed.

“No, no, Yuuri,” Viktor had said, shaking his head gently, “The medals are not my prize. You are. Although I’m not sure what I could have possibly done to deserve you.”

Yuuri had gasped—inhaling sharply and immediately at a loss for words.

“So if I never won gold—you’d still--?”

“Love you?” Viktor had said effortlessly, gliding forward half a step so that they were now toe to toe. Yuuri shouldn’t have been surprised by how easily Viktor said it, really—everything Viktor ever did he did effortlessly. This was no exception. “Of course I’d still love you.”

“Oh,” Yuuri had gasped again. “Oh,” he had repeated.

Yuuri watched as Viktor’s eyebrows furrowed and his lips pursed into a line.

“Have I not shown you enough?” Viktor had asked, worriedly.

Now it was Yuuri’s turn to furrow his brow. They’d kissed on live television and wore matching rings, of course, but there had been a thousand other little things. A thousand touches, a thousand words spoken more gently than needed, a thousand looks.

Yuuri had known. Of course he’d known. But he needed more reassurance. Bolder and more direct consistent reassurance.

“I think,” Yuuri had said slowly, “That maybe you could kiss me more.”

And finally it was Viktor’s turn to gasp.

“Or, I could kiss you,” Yuuri had said, and then had leaned forwards, pressing up just a bit onto his toe picks, and had done just that.

The kiss hadn’t been too long or intense, but Viktor had bitten onto Yuuri’s lip and tugged on it as he pulled away in a way that had seemed like a promise of more.

“I bet you’ll think of that the next time you skate Eros,” Viktor had said.

“Hm,” Yuuri had replied, pushing off from Viktor and gliding backwards across the ice. “I bet that you’ll have given me a little more Eros than that before the next competition to think about,” he’d said with a coy grin before whipping around and skating off across the rink.

“Yuuuuri!” Viktor had cried out after him. “What do you mean? _When_ do you mean?”

Yuuri though didn’t say anything. Instead, he just let out a laugh. It boomed out of his chest and in that moment, it occurred to Yuuri, another thing he’d known before but still hadn’t quite yet been sure of, that he was happy.

*

Eventually Yuuri got out of the shower, but only as the water began to run cold.

Then, for a long while longer he just sat on the toilet, wrapped in a towel, counting his breaths.

Finally, he got up and put on his clothes, hung up the towel, and made his way back into the bedroom.

He immediately noticed Celestino, sitting on his own bed, legs outstretched.

“I was beginning to think I’d have to check and see if you fell in,” Celestino greeted. “But I knew we only had a shower.”

Yuuri smiled tightly at the just slightly and painfully too close to home joke. Instead, Yuuri went to dig his laptop out of his suitcase.

“I think I’m going to look into having my flight changed,” Yuuri said, going over to sit down on his bed, scooting back against the headboard and crossing his legs before opening his laptop.

“Yuuri,” Celestino said. “We really need to talk.”

Yuuri didn’t say anything.

“I can’t make you do anything, Yuuri,” Celestino said. “I certainly can’t make you skate, and even if I could, somehow, I could never guilt you into skating like you did today. Your heart needs to be in it for that,” he said.

Yuuri continued to say nothing. Celestino seemed less bothered by that this time though, as he kept speaking.

“But that’s what I don’t get, Yuuri. You’ve been working your ass off for years. I’ve had to bribe you into taking the smallest breaks. Encouraged Phichit to kidnap you on occasions just to keep you away from the rink. You failed and retook some of your university classes rather than get off the rink. And I get it, if you’ve burnt out. I get it. I was—” he sighed. “I knew it was coming. But you, you can’t skate like you did today and say that that was a farewell. That was a rebirth.”

Yuuri felt like he could have thrown up.

“There’s a flight to Tokyo tomorrow morning,” Yuuri murmured. Celestino leaned over and looked at the screen.

“With a nineteen-hour layover in Istanbul, Yuuri, you might as well stick to your original flight. And don’t tell me you’re going to skip the exhibition,” Celestino said, his voice growing a bit harsher with frustration as he continued to speak.

Yuuri shrugged.

“That’s a $5,000 decision Yuuri,” Celestino finally snapped. “They’ll deduct it out of your prize money. You know it.”

Yuuri did, he suppose, objectively knew that there was a penalty for not participating in the exhibition. But he hadn’t really thought about it. While 2014 Yuuri thought about money all the time, 2017 Yuuri had along the way, although he was still “charmingly frugal” as Viktor sometimes put it, grown a little less concerned.

Although, Yuuri supposed he would have to be again. Particularly if he retired.

But even with the penalty, he’d probably won at least $10,000 with silver today—Yuuri couldn’t remember exactly what the prizes had been at this point in time, but it probably wasn’t all that different in two years. That would last a little while, if he was careful.

Mari may have been primed to take over Yu-topia in the wake of Yuuri’s skating career, but there was probably still a place for him in the family business. He could work at the inn. Skate at Ice Castle. Wait out his life.

Maybe he could learn to cook better, take over the restaurant. That could be nice.

“Do you have my wallet?” Yuuri asked, not looking up from his computer screen. “It was in my backpack, probably.”

There was silence where Yuuri imagined Celestino was staring at him tiredly as frustration collapsed into exhaustion.

“Where is your bag?” he finally responded though, apparently resigned.

At that, Yuuri looked up.

“I thought you had it.”

“What?” Celestino said. “I thought you did.”

“I left it in the locker room. I didn’t—I was in a rush.”

For a moment, Yuuri and Celestino each just stared at each other. For a second, Yuuri would worry he be chastised again about fiscal responsibility—Yuuri imagined that while the base value of his costume and skates were already high enough, now they were probably collector’s items.

But instead Celestino only sighed.

“I’ll go back to the arena and look for it. Give security a call and see if anyone turned it in.”

That was when Yuuri realized how tired Celestino looked. He looked almost as tired as Yuuri felt.

“I’m sorry,” Yuuri offered, although he knew it probably at this point didn’t mean much. “Is there anything I can do?”

Celestino shook his head.

“No, I imagine you should stay here,” Celestino said. “I’ll let you know as soon as I find it.”

“Thank you,” Yuuri said quietly.

Celestino nodded one more time before leaving the room and Yuuri shut his laptop and immediately collapsed back onto the bed, closing his eyes.

He couldn’t help but have a twisting feeling in the pit of his stomach that maybe, just maybe he was doing everything wrong.

It wouldn’t have been the first time.

In fact, it was definitely the second time.

*

Yuuri was cold again—that bitter, biting, bone-chilling cold that was almost becoming familiar.

Except right now he wasn’t fighting, he was floating.

His body was lax as it sunk down, watching as the glimmer of light as the surface grew further and further away.

Just as Yuuri was about to close his eyes, about to resign himself to the ice, a rush of water was pushed against him as something shot into the water before him.

Viktor.

The man was swimming towards him, stripped down to his underwear.

In another instant he grabbed onto Yuuri’s limp body by the arms.

For the briefest of moments, Viktor just floated with Yuuri. Yuuri finally felt the peace of the water that he hadn’t felt the first time.

Viktor mouthed something, three syllables, but Yuuri couldn’t tell for sure what they were.

Then he kicked off, pulling Yuuri to the surface.

*

Yuuri awoke with a gasp to the vibrations of his phone ringing on his chest.

“Hello?” Yuuri answered it, at the same time trying to calm a too fast beating heart.

“Hi Yuuri, so it turns out someone found your things and brought it back to the hotel,” Yuuri recognized Celestino’s voice. “They’ll be dropping it by soon, okay? I’m in a cab on my way back as well.”

“What?” Yuuri said, feeling lost for a moment before yet again a wave of remembrance came—a feeling he was getting all too used to. “Oh, sure, okay.”

“Please just, can we talk some more before you decide you’re leaving? I’m sure the plane ticket will still be just as exorbitantly expensive an hour from now.”

Yuuri didn’t say anything.

“Well, chat soon either way,” he sighed “Ciao ciao.”

Yuuri hung up the phone and made to sit up on the edge of his bed, taking steady breaths.

It had been a dream.

Of course it had been a dream.

If anyone knew what the difference between how dreams and reality felt now, it was Yuuri.

And this, this had been too… light maybe was the best way to describe it. Life, life was like everything all at once. Even in the most peaceful, most content moments there was still a heaviness to life. The weight of gravity pressing on your body, the weight of skin and flesh on bone, the weight of living on the mind.

Dreams though were weightless.

And Yuuri in this moment felt so heavy, like he’d been dipped in lead.

He could tell that right now was reality because of the weight of his heart in his chest and the weight of his body sinking into the bed.

He could tell because of the weighty reverberations of sound that echoed through the room as there was a knock at the door.

Someone was here.

With his bag and skate gear, presumably.

Yuuri braced himself as he got up, not particularly in the mood to talk to someone. He had a sinking feeling that whoever this was would want more from Yuuri than a thank you, and Yuuri knew it would take a lot out of him to give even that much.

With a deep breath, Yuuri opened the door.

Standing there, with Yuuri’s garment bag hooked on a finger and hanging over his shoulder and his backpack resting at his feet, was Viktor Nikiforov.

Yuuri wished he had it in him to just slam the door.

*

“I think that maybe this should be the last season for me too,” Yuuri had whispered to Viktor one night as they lay in bed together, tangled up in sheets that probably now could use a wash.

“What are you talking about?” Viktor had whispered back, as careful as Yuuri not to disturb the quiet of the moment.

It was mid-summer now and they had just moved to Russia and were busy prepping for Viktor’s comeback and Yuuri’s next chance at gold in the Grand Prix.

Yuuri of course in the meantime had taken gold at the World Championship, but that had come to, in Yuuri’s mind and most of the worlds, seem meaningless in the wake of Viktor Nikiforov’s return.

Yuuri had been enjoying the change though. Although he missed Hasetsu, he enjoyed living alone with just Viktor and the bubble their apartment had become for them together.

“It’s just—I don’t really know if I want to skate without you,” Yuuri said. “I’ll be turning twenty-five this year. Twenty-five is a reasonable age to retire. I know more and more skaters have been pushing it to twenty-six or twenty-seven, and of course there’s you, mister almost-almost thirty, but you know.”

“Oh,” Viktor had laughed. “Almost-almost thirty is equal to almost-twenty-nine, is it? I thought we’d been working on your math skills with all the score calculation?”

Yuuri had ducked his head into Viktor’s chest at the teasing.

“But really,” Viktor continued, his tone serious, “Do you not love skating anymore?”

Yuuri shook his head, nuzzling his nose against Viktor’s collar bone.

“No, I mean,” Yuuri floundered for a moment. “I mean, _yes_ , of course I do. I always will. But I love you more.”

“I’m not going anywhere, Yuuri,” Viktor had said. “Whether or not I’m competing, I’ll be right at your side.”

“Yes, I know,” Yuuri had said, “It’s just—” Yuuri had found himself floundering again.

“Just what, lyubov moya? I don’t understand.”

There had been silence for a few moments as Yuuri had gathered his thoughts.

“I don’t think I do, either,” Yuuri had finally responded. “It’s just. It’s just, I’m supposed to give up, I think. Before things go downhill.”

“What?” Viktor said, pushing up off the bed to turn to look down at Yuuri.

“Before I met you, I had quit, wanting to abort my career before it took anymore of a nosedive. And I just, even now that things are going so well, I can’t help but feel like where ever I am is as high as I’ll ever get. I think—I know it’s not true—but I felt like I was coasting on your glory, I guess. Without you, I’ll start to flounder again. You were the special ingredient that made me shine.”

“But Yuuri,” Viktor had said, his voice just a bit pleading, “Even if that were true, I’m not going anywhere.”

“But, I—” Yuuri had started, but Viktor had cut him off.

“No, baby,” Viktor had said voice gritty with earnestness. “I bet that you’ll win gold at every competition next season. With me out of the way nothing will stop you,” a smug smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

“But Yuri—”

“Is sixteen going on seventeen and can wait another couple of years for his reign of terror to go into full swing.”

Yuuri had paused again and silence fell.

“So two more seasons then?” Yuuri had said slowly, after a moment.

“What?”

“I’ll do one season after you retire, end it on an Olympic year. I never got to do one of those.”

Viktor had collapsed back onto the bed dramatically in defeat at that.

“Relationships are about compromise, aren’t they!” Yuuri had exclaimed, but he had been laughing.

“You’ll be the death of me, Katsuki Yuuri,” Viktor had said. “I’d once worried that my pursuit of gold would end in devastation, but zolotse, you’ve ruined me.”

Yuuri had felt heat rise to his cheeks at a comment like that.

“You know the best way to keep your gold shiny?” Yuuri had decided to whisper instead.

“Oh, baby, I just polished you plenty.”

“No, no,” Yuuri had laughed and swatted at Viktor. “You keep it close to your chest.”

And with that Yuuri had snuggled down against Viktor’s chest. The other man had responded quickly, without any more prompting, wrapping his arm around Yuuri and pulling him close.

*

“My rink mate Yuri found your things in the locker room,” Viktor said with a smile. “It’s getting passed his bedtime though, so I agreed to bring them to you.”

Yuuri could imagine Yuri screaming at Viktor for a comment like that, which was too amusing of a thought for how ill Yuuri currently felt.

“Oh,” was all Yuuri could bring himself to say. “Thanks.”

“Although, I guess you won’t be needing them anymore,” Viktor shrugged.

Yuuri furrowed his brow.

“No,” he said. “But I need my wallet to buy a plane ticket home tomorrow morning,” Yuuri said, bending down to grab the bag from where it sat at Viktor’s feet.

When he looked back up, he was surprised to see Viktor’s face had fallen.

“You’re serious?” he asked.

Yuuri didn’t know what to say to that. So instead he just stood in the doorway, frozen.

“You could beat me, you know,” Viktor said in the silence.

Yuuri’s brow knit tighter.

“I know.”

Viktor’s face grew even more surprised.

“What?”

“I said I don’t have anything to prove,” Yuuri said, looking down at the floor and kicking at the carpet.

“What?” Viktor repeated.

“Thank you for bringing my things back, I appreciate it,” Yuuri tried, reaching out to grab the garment bag.

“Wait!” Viktor exclaimed, taking a step back and holding the garment bag hostage. “You do! You have to prove it.”

“What?”

“I need you to prove that you can beat me.”

“You just said that you knew I could beat you.”

“Well, I changed my mind. I’m not going to let you.”

Yuuri closed his eyes and sighed.

This was so much. Standing here, taking to Viktor, it was as much as he imagined it would be. It was too heavy. Too real. Viktor had always been the only thing in real life that ever felt even close to a dream.

“What, do you want to bet or something,” Yuuri said without thinking.

His eyes flew open though once he’d realized what he’d said just in time to catch Viktor now beaming.

“Okay!” he said, although Yuuri found himself gripping the door knob tightly as he it was the only thing holding him up. “I bet that I’ll win at the Championships.”

Yuuri just blinked at Viktor, not really ready to believe this was happening. But then it felt too real. And too wrong.

Viktor never bet against Yuuri. His Viktor would never, ever, have bet against him.

“And if I win, you have to keep skating. Until you’re at least as old as I am now,” Viktor continued.

“And if I win?” Yuuri asked.

“Then you can retire,” Viktor said simply. “Just one more competition, and then you’re out for real.”

Yuuri wanted out now. He couldn’t take this. There was a pressure on his chest now, growing heavier and heavier and Yuuri found himself wondering if he’d soon become unable to breathe.

“I’ll have to go to nationals,” Yuuri pointed out helplessly.

“Okay, sure, then two. But you can skip the Four Continents.”

Yuuri somehow found it in himself to look back up at Viktor, really look at him.

That’s when he noticed the man was smiling at him. Not a polite smile, but a genuine heart-shaped smile.

“And why would I go along with this?” Yuuri found himself whispering.

“Because it’s a compromise,” Viktor said as if that made everything crystal clear. “And I won’t give you your costume back unless you agree,” he added.

“But—I don’t need my costume unless I agree.”

Finally, Viktor said nothing. He just stared at Yuuri, grinning mischievously. His eyes full of a mirth that Yuuri knew exactly how much he’d been missing.

He’d been missing that look like an addict in withdrawal. This Viktor wasn’t his Viktor, Yuuri tried to remind himself. This Viktor didn’t really even believe in him. Certainly didn’t love him. Just wanted a competitor.

But Yuuri had always gotten a bit lost in those eyes.

And that was the absolutely only reason why Yuuri could possibly imagine that he opened his mouth and said—

“Fine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for for all the comments and kudos and such. It really always makes my day when I compulsively refresh my email whenever I'm bored at work and find a nice thing to read!


	4. If the Dream is a Translation of Waking Life, than Waking Life is Also the Translation of the Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And the thing was it’s not like he didn’t know—he did—that this Viktor was lonely. It’s not like that the way Viktor was feeling right now had never crossed his mind. He knew, probably better than this Viktor even knew himself, that he was lonely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! This chapter is very long and at times devastatingly angsty (just in case you thought we were past that).

“Yuuuri!” Viktor had slurred his name. “Yuuurri,” he had called again before breaking into a stream of Russian that Yuuri had only understood about every fifth word of.

_Beautiful…perfect…love…you…everything_

“In English, Vitya, if you want me to understand,” Yuuri had said, gripping Viktor tighter around the waist as the other man began to stumble through the doorway of their apartment.

They’d gone out that night—to celebrate Yuuri’s birthday, but Viktor had taken celebrating far more seriously than Yuuri had.

It had been the middle of that second and last Grand Prix series which they were both competing in and the fact that they even managed to be home on Yuuri’s birthday was a miracle. Yuuri hadn’t wanted to press his luck and somehow end up with a multiday hangover when they had been due to board a plane to Japan for the NHK Trophy in about 16 hours.

But Viktor was _Russian_ , as he had only ever really reminded Yuuri when the topic of drinking too much came up, so Yuuri had cut himself off after three drinks and had become the designated responsible one for the evening— a role they had seemed to take turns in over the years.

“You already understand,” Viktor had said in English, stopping dead in his tracks and whipping around to suddenly grab a hold of Yuuri’s face, smashing Yuuri’s cheeks between his palms. “You understand me better than anyone,” Viktor had whispered, pressing his forehead against Yuuri’s.

“Your breath smells like the floor of a club,” Yuuri had observed, electing to ignore Viktor’s sentiment this time around.

“You smell like,” Viktor had said tracing his nose across Yuuri’s face and up into his hairline and inhaling. “Mm, me!” he’d announced, pulling away suddenly. “You smell like my shampoo!”

Yuuri had rolled his eyes.

“Because it takes up too much space in the bathroom to have two kinds of everything, Vitya. I might as well just use yours,” Yuuri had replied.

“Mm, please do,” Viktor had hummed, a dopey smile spreading across his face and Yuuri had quickly caught him under the arms again as his body went slack and fell against Yuuri . “Use my shampoo, my bed, my ice rink, use me, anything, lyubov moya.”

“How about we just focus on getting you to bed for now?” Yuuri had said, leading Viktor towards their bedroom.

“Mm, okay. I like my bed. More than I used to,” Viktor murmured, looking distracted again. “Used to be lonely—sometimes I tried to fill it, but it only made it lonelier.”

Yuuri had frowned a bit and clutched Viktor closer to him. Yuuri had known by that point, explicitly, the depth of Viktor’s hurt before—how lonely it really was at the top, even for a man as beyond charming and beautiful and talented as Viktor was.

And although it of course had broken Yuuri’s heart to realize, it had also been one of the first things that had made Yuuri realize their relationship was going to really work—realizing that Viktor was as lonely and hurting as Yuuri was. In spite of all the differences Yuuri had seen between them, somehow, impossibly, they were on equal ground in their own lonely messes.

“We’re not alone anymore, Vitya,” Yuuri had whispered. “We don’t have to ever be alone anymore again.”

Viktor had said nothing to this, instead just nuzzling his head against Yuuri gently as Yuuri had readjusted his grip around the other man and continued to pull him along in the direction of their room.

After a near catastrophe when a drowsy Makkachin had nearly tripped them both up, Yuuri had eventually finally managed to get Viktor across their apartment. It was always seemed so modestly sized until suddenly he was lugging Viktor’s dead weight and octopus limbs across it.

Carefully, he had Viktor sit down on the edge of the bed, standing before him with his hands on Viktor’s shoulders.

“Okay, now time for bed,” Yuuri had stated firmly.

“We should sleep naked,” Viktor had announced suddenly. For a second, Yuuri had closed his eyes in mild frustration at Viktor’s antics, but a moment later he had smiled fondly and shook his head.

“Why? I like my pajamas, thanks.”

Viktor had then leaned forward into Yuuri, their foreheads knocking together again.

“Cause it makes it easier to fuck you in the morning,” he had said, his voice low.

Yuuri, though, had not been seduced, and instead he had rolled his eyes.

“I think the only thing you’re going to want in the morning is some painkillers and a sports drink,” Yuuri had said. “And knowing you about a dozen blini. Actually I’ll be right back.”

“Yuuurri!” Viktor had cried again, dramatically making to grab Yuuri as he stood up from the bed but missing by a mile and instead just slumping over on himself.

“I’ll be right back, Vitya,” Yuuri had said, before leaving the room to make a round of the apartment to pick up a few hangover-warding essentials.

When Yuuri had gotten back, he’d found Viktor lying naked on the bed, arms crossed behind his head as he leaned up against the headboard.

He hadn’t been at all surprised at the sight and rolled his eyes.

“You’re glorious, Vitya,” Yuuri had said, although it wasn’t as particularly reverent as it was amused. “Now come here and let me take care of you,” he said, holding out a bottle of some Russian sports drink Yuuri couldn’t even read the name of in one hand and a bottle of pain relievers in the other.

Viktor stayed where he was though and shook his head side-to-side while smiling like a petulant toddler who knew they were going to get their way.

“You have to strip first,” he declared. “So we’re equal.”

Knowing well to choose his battles when it came to less than sober Viktor, Yuuri had sighed and put down his supplies on the nightstand before making to ungracefully shove off his jeans.

Viktor had booed him.

“What?” 

“Do it better, miliy.”

Yuuri had laughed and rolled his eyes.

“The things I’ll do for you, Vitya,” he’d said. “Fine, silly man.”

In one swift movement, he hopped out of the pants that were now pooled around his ankles and straddled Viktor on the bed, a knee on each side of the other man’s legs. He leaned back a bit, so his hips were thrust forwards as he slowly peeled his shirt off over his head.

“Like this?”

“Mm, much better,” Viktor had said, reaching out to trace fingers across Yuuri’s stomach as Yuuri flung his shirt across the room with a wink.

“Now,” Yuuri whispered, leaning forwards now to let his lips ghost along and his breath tickle along the other man’s jaw. Viktor trembled. “You’ve got to earn the rest of it.”

And with that Yuuri had pulled back, a teasing smile on his face, the same moment Viktor had begun to get a little too handsy. 

And just as quickly as it had started, it was over. Yuuri, still in his underwear, had gotten off of Viktor quickly and went to sit on the edge of the bed, patting the spot next to him for Viktor to join him. “Now come here and let me take care of you, silly man.”

This time though, Viktor had done as he was told, crawling across the bed and swinging his legs over the side to sit next to Yuuri.

They had sat there, Viktor naked, Yuuri almost, while Viktor swallowed two pills and sipped on the drink. Yuuri rubbed Viktor’s back and massages his shoulders absent mindedly while he waited for the man to finish.

“Alright,” Viktor set down the empty bottle only a few minutes later. “The package please,” he said with a yawn.

Yuuri scrunched up his face at the word choice.

“Get into bed first.”

Viktor had tried to sigh dramatically, but before he’d gotten to the exhale, he’d gotten caught in another big yawn.

“Ugh, so bossy, zolotse,” Viktor had said as he yawned, but had immediately begun to do as instructed none the less, drowsiness pulling visibly on his face now. “Can you be bossy with me in the morning too?” he’d yawned again.

“Whatever you want, Vitya,” Yuuri said, sliding into bed and under the duvet after him. Only once they were tucked in together did Yuuri reach down and pull off his underwear.

“That’s definitely cheating,” Viktor had murmured, but hadn’t protested much—in fact doing the opposite, easily letting Yuuri pull him against his chest.

“Goodnight, Vitya. I love you.”

“Ya tebya lyublyu, Yuuri.”

*

For a long time, all Yuuri could think about was the beaming look on Viktor’s face after he agreed to finish the season. He remembered the feeling of bile rising in his throat at the look of this younger iteration of his now former lover smiling at Yuuri like he’d hung the moon. He remembered feeling like he was going to choke on it. He remembered the look on Viktor’s face not wavering for a second in spite of Yuuri’s own increasing anguish—the man oblivious.

It was hours later now, Yuuri lying in a darkened hotel room in the middle of the night with Celestino asleep in the next bed, and he still felt physically ill from it.

Eventually though, that predominate image that had been painfully seared into his mind finally gave way to others.

They turned out to be no less painful in memory than they had been when they’d happened though all the same.

_“So we’ll shake on it?” Viktor had asked, holding out his hand._

_Yuuri had reached out, wanting nothing more than to end this painful conversation, whatever it took, but just as their fingertips brushed, Yuuri felt a spark. Yuuri knew it wasn’t some sort of sign that they were linked by destiny, rather it was merely some static electricity likely built up by walking around on the hotels industrial carpeting that coated the place wall to wall. The shock though had sent a jolt through Yuuri’s system, and he tried to pull back, but Viktor caught his hand too quickly—reaching out and grabbing it._

_For too long a moment they had stood there, Viktor holding onto Yuuri’s limp hand._

_Yuuri had watched as Viktor’s face finally fell in that moment. The other man had dropped his hand like it had burned him._

God, being around Viktor hurt so much. It hurt Yuuri so, so much. It hurt so much it was making him ill. Just the thought of him made him want to vomit.

_“Are you alright, Yuuri?” Viktor had asked, slowly._

_At the sound of his name on Viktor’s lips, Yuuri had clutched his stomach._

_“I’m not feeling well,” Yuuri had said, honestly._

_“Oh,” Viktor had said, a bit awkwardly._

Viktor had never been good at taking care of other people, Yuuri knew. He wanted to, but always had a hard time getting it right.

Viktor had said, once upon a time, that it was Yuuri who taught him how.

After Yuuri had confessed that his anxiety before competitions had slowly gotten less intense the longer he competed with Viktor as his coach, Viktor in response had said that Yuuri took care of people better than anyone he had ever known. That Yuuri had coached him through the process learning how to love him, learning how to encourage Yuuri to be the best version of himself.

_“So I take it you won’t be coming out to celebrate tonight then?” he asked. “Chris said he’d invited you.”_

_“I don’t go out, usually,” Yuuri said._

_“That’s what Chris said,” Viktor said, looking disappointed. “You should definitely some time though. Go out, I mean. With me,” Viktor paused.” And Chris and everyone. Maybe at the Championships then.”_

Yuuri hadn’t missed the slip or whatever it was. He didn’t know if it hurt more or less if Viktor genuinely had meant it in some part of himself or if it had genuinely been a clumsy use of words.

 _Yuuri had said nothing_.

He should have said something then, Yuuri berated himself as he lay in bed. An, “About that, Viktor,” maybe. It would have been the perfect time to tell Viktor he’d changed his mind.

But instead he didn’t say anything like that. Instead when he finally managed to speak, he’d for some god forsaken reason said, _“Maybe.”_

And Viktor had started beaming again. And Yuuri had thought he could feel stomach acid burning through the lining of his stomach.

_“If you’re feeling better or change your mind, feel free to come by—we’ll probably be drinking in my room until about eleven,” Viktor said. “It’s room 415.”_

It was far past eleven now, and Yuuri definitely hadn’t gone. He wondered, briefly, what Viktor was doing right now. Were they still out? Was he drunk? How drunk? Did they go dancing? Was Viktor—

But before he could go farther down the rabbit hole, Yuuri immediately shut down that train of thought. He couldn’t do this. It didn’t matter what this Viktor did, Yuuri needed to never think of the man at all, ever again. That seemed like the only possible solution to this hurt that wasn’t fading.

_“I think I should get some rest, but thanks,” Yuuri had said, using the last bit of energy he had in him to say politely._

_“Alright, well, oh!” Viktor had said suddenly, “Almost forgot,” he had said, holding out Yuuri’s garment bag like it was an afterthought when for Yuuri it was probably the only reason he hadn’t shut the door in Viktor’s face about five minutes ago. “See you at exhibition practice tomorrow morning.”_

_Yuuri had smiled, his face feeling tight. He still didn’t know if he was even going to do the exhibition._

Even now, Yuuri didn’t know. He wanted to go home.

He wanted—he wanted—

He wanted his Viktor.

He wanted—he wanted—

He wanted Makkachin.

No he wanted _his_ dog, his Vicchan, who he’d missed by only a few hours.

That realization hit Yuuri like a ton of bricks. When he’d remembered that Vicchan had just died earlier at the competition, he hadn’t thought much of it, that hurt old now and seemingly irrelevant in the wake of now having lost everything else.

But now, alone in a bed without Viktor and Makkachin for the first time in years, he realized how devastating it was—to be thrust back through space and time and still somehow missing a chance to see Vicchan again by only a few hours.

It was and exceptionally cruel thing, what had been done to him, Yuuri decided.

But all he could do about it was wrap his arms around his nauseated stomach, stare up at the hotel ceiling in the dark of the night, and listen to Celestino snore as he lay alone in his cold bed.

*

Yuuri woke up to the sounds of a beeping heart monitor, feeling dazed and confused.

It took him only a few moments though to realize that he was in a hospital bed.

Yuuri looked around the room, piecing it together, but stopped the instant he saw a head of silvery blond hair resting on top of a set of folded arms on the mattress beside him, belonging to a man who was slumped over while sitting on a chair pulled up to the bed.

“Vitya,” he opened his mouth and said, but instead nothing came out but the softest of a rasp. “Vitya,” he tried again, this time the name coming out barely a whisper.

Viktor gasped as he awoke with a start.

“Yuuri, oh bozhe moy.”

In an instant Viktor was crying.

“Vitya,” Yuuri repeated, not knowing anything else to say.

Viktor was here. _His_ Viktor was here.

“Never do that to me again, lyubov moya,” Viktor said reverently, tears streaming down his face. “Do you understand? Never.”

Yuuri realized he was crying now too.

“I thought I lost you,” Viktor whispered.

“Me too,” Yuuri whispered back.

He looked at Viktor. The man looked wrecked—hair stringy like he’d been wringing his hands through it instead of showering, and his face was also a bit sallow.

Then he noticed that Viktor’s hand was resting on his hand. But he couldn’t feel it there.

Something was wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong, Yuuri knew in an instant.

Carefully he moved his fingers, curling them up. They moved just fine. Not paralysis, then.

No, something far, far worse.

In an instant, he knew.

It was all too light, nothing felt right—real.

“No, please,” Yuuri begged, and Viktor looked at him with wide, worried eyes.

But of course, it changed nothing.

*

When Yuuri woke up, he sat up with a start.

Then he realized he was crying, tears streaming down his face like they had been in the dream, but now for exactly the opposite reason.

And it was of course that moment Celestino came out of the bathroom.

“Oh, Yuuri, you’re up, good,” he said, “I was hoping you’d sleep in a bit instead of getting up at the crack of dawn like you usually do, and oh,” Celestino froze when he must have finally made out Yuuri’s face in the room that was only illuminated by a thin ray of light streaming in through a crack in the curtains. “Oh, Yuuri,” Celestino said, his voice gentle, and then he said nothing else.

Yuuri just let the tears stream down his cheeks as he stared at Celestino with wide eyes, seemingly unable to do anything else.

That was when he became aware of the nausea. He felt like he wasn’t just going to be sick this time, but that all his organs would be expelled, and he would turn himself inside out with the force of his retching.

He couldn’t do this. He _could not_ do this.

“I’m sorry,” Yuuri found himself whispering as he let out a choked sob.

It was enough to have to be reminded of his loss by seeing a real-life Viktor. Was he going to continue to be haunted by him in his dreams as well?

He couldn’t do this. It hurt too much.

He loved him. He loved him so much.

And he’d lost him.

Was he going to have to keep losing him, again and again? 

“Yuuri, do you want to talk about it? Do you want some alone time?” Celestino asked, helplessly.

No, he wanted—he wanted to be done with this.

He wanted to be able to forget.  

“I have to—” Yuuri said, and in that moment a thought popped into his mind and in an instant, he knew what he had to do. And he had to do it right now or he never would. “I have to do something,” he said hurriedly. “I’ll—I’ll be back.”

And with that Yuuri flew out of bed and rushed to the door.

“What? Yuuri—” Celestino called but didn’t stop Yuuri as he ran out of the hotel room.

He was still in his pajamas, he wasn’t even wearing shoes, Yuuri realized as he ran down the hallway, but it had to be now.

It _had_ to be now. Right now, just when he felt like he couldn’t hurt anymore.

Not bothering to call an elevator, Yuuri found a staircase and practically flew down a flight, his feet pounding rapidly on the steps. He pushed out of the doorway into the hallway on the floor below and started reading the numbers on the doors, looking for the right one.

_423, 421, 419, 417…_

Then he saw it.

Yuuri knocked on the door impatiently. He needed to get this over with. He couldn’t bear it.

He felt so sick. He couldn’t feel like this way for months more.

And the thing was it’s not like he didn’t know—he did—that this Viktor was lonely. It’s not like that the way Viktor was feeling right now had never crossed his mind. He _knew_ , probably better than this Viktor even knew himself, that he was lonely.

And he was sympathetic of that.

He knew he was excited by the chance to have a competitor, to not have to be alone at the top anymore. He knew from there the implications of that could grow in Viktor’s mind into more, if he was given the time.

But however much Yuuri’s rejection of Viktor would hurt the man, that pain would be one thousand times less than the pain Yuuri was feeling right now, Yuuri knew.

If Yuuri disappeared from the figure skating world, Viktor would be disappointed.

If Yuuri stayed, it would kill him.

Yuuri had been so selfless for Viktor for so long now, but he couldn’t do it anymore. He’d done everything Viktor wanted, given everything Viktor asked, and Viktor had given and given right back.

But he couldn’t do it over again, not if it involved giving this much to someone who didn’t know anything about that kind of selflessness.

They learned to love each other together, once upon a time. They’d grown together.

Now there was an imbalance that was insurmountable. Viktor didn’t know so much about loving him, and Yuuri couldn’t imagine teaching him all over again.

It hurt, it hurt, it hurt.

So the only thing he could do is cut Viktor out of his life entirely and hope that maybe that would dull the pain.

So Yuuri kept knocking on the door, the raps steady and increasingly frantic.

From behind the door, a shout came in Russian, clearly a little irritated with the incessant knocking.

Maybe Viktor thought he was the rudest housekeeper in the world. Maybe he thought he was Yakov or Yuri.

Yuuri didn’t care, he kept knocking.

Finally the door swung open, and there Viktor stood. He looked like he’d just woken up.

“Chto?” he said, running a hand through his hair. Then he saw Yuuri and instantly he froze. “Yuuri?”

Viktor stared at him. Yuuri knew he must have looked a sight—barefoot in pajamas, hair uncombed, cheeks tearstained. But Yuuri didn’t care. He needed to—he needed to—

Yuuri’s eyes flew down Viktor’s body—maybe as an old habit, maybe because that was the way they had to go to look at the floor because looking Viktor in the eye was too painful.

It was then, though, he noticed that Viktor was shirtless, only wearing a pair of sweat pants that hung loosely on his hips.

And then that was when he noticed the marks on Viktor’s skin—little red and purple bruises along his collar bone, scratches down his chest, finger nail indentations on his hips.

And Yuuri forgot in an instant everything he was going to say, because as he gasped at Viktor’s marked  torso, that’s when he caught sight of the stranger that was lying in the bed in the hotel room behind him.

Yuuri was going to be sick.

“Yuuri,” Viktor gasped again as Yuuri doubled over, his hand flying to his mouth as bile rose in his throat.

Mind clicking into some kind of survival mode, Yuuri found himself pushing past Viktor and stumbling into his bathroom, flinging an arm out on the way to slam the door shut behind him before collapsing onto the floor in front of the toilet and beginning to retch.

Yuuri knew Viktor had slept around before he’d followed Yuuri to Hasetsu. He wasn’t actually as promiscuous as many a skating fan may have imagined, but he was a grown man who also happened to look like a god. Of course he had a bit of experience under his belt before Yuuri. And that wasn’t something that bothered Yuuri, of course.

But he had never before had to see the aftermath or the evidence.

And of course, Yuuri also knew as he emptied the contents of his stomach into the toilet, that this Viktor had a right to do whatever he wanted. He didn’t belong to Yuuri.

But that’s exactly the thing. He wasn’t Yuuri’s.

This Viktor would never be Yuuri’s Viktor.

And just when Yuuri had thought that he finally couldn’t hurt any worse, here he was.

Yuuri heaved a final time, officially nothing left, and then collapse backwards, falling slumped against the wall, feeling worse than death—which Yuuri could officially say now not even as an expression.

He could hear talking out in the bedroom. He couldn’t make out much but then he heard footsteps draw closer to the bathroom.

“Please leave,” Viktor’s voice said.

Yuuri didn’t hear anything else but the thud of a door.

Then for a long moment there was silence.

Eventually though, there was a quiet rap on the door.

“Yuuri?” Viktor’s voice called out. “Are you okay?”

Yuuri didn’t say anything.

“Can I come in?”

Yuuri still didn’t say anything.

“Okay, um,” Viktor faltered. “If you don’t want me to come in can you make some kind of noise?”

For whatever reason, Yuuri remained silent and still, maybe just too exhausted to do anything else.

And so, another moment later the bathroom door creaked open, and Viktor slid inside. He was wearing a shirt now, Yuuri realized, and he was grateful.

“When you said you weren’t feeling well, I’d thought that was just an excuse,” Viktor said with a nervous laugh, perhaps not the most tactfully. Then he knelt down a careful distance away from Yuuri and looked at him with worried eyes.

Yuuri still couldn’t bring himself to say anything.

“I’m sorry,” Viktor said next, and that finally startled Yuuri into responding.

“For what?”

“I didn’t know you were coming this morning.”

Well, obviously. Yuuri hadn’t known he was coming this morning either. And now in retrospect, he wished he’d given it more thought and reconsidered.

“You’re sorry for not knowing I was coming this morning?” Yuuri repeated back, dumbly.

Viktor opened his mouth, but then shut it.

“Yes,” he seemed to decide on saying after a moment.

Then there was more silence.

“So, erm,” Viktor said, scratching the back of his neck, “Why _did_ you come here this morning?”

Yuuri closed his eyes.

This was it, he knew. He had to do it now. He _had_ to.

“I don’t need to prove anything to you,” he said, eyes still closed.

It was silent for a long moment. So long that Yuuri opened his eyes to see if the other man was still even there.

Viktor was, though, his brow furrowed.

“What?” Viktor asked. “I—” he began, but Yuuri cut him off before he could get any farther.

Finally, Yuuri realized, he didn’t hurt anymore.

Instead, he just didn’t feel anything.

“I can’t skate for you, Viktor,” Yuuri said, his voice flat. “I’m too tired. It hurts too much.”

Viktor’s brow knit tighter.

“Yuuri?” Viktor asked, clearly struggling to put together the pieces even though Yuuri knew none of them belonged to the same puzzle and where never going to fit.

So Yuuri decided to give him an answer he knew would make sense to this Viktor.

“My dog just died,” Yuuri said. “I haven’t been home in five years—I haven’t seen him in five years. And now he’s dead and I never got to say goodbye.”

Viktor gasped, but Yuuri kept going.

“I’m going to go home. I don’t know if I’ll be up for nationals. I don’t know if I’ll be up to compete this season. I don’t know if I’ll be up to skating competitively again.”

“Yuuri, I’m so—” Viktor said, but Yuuri cut him off.

“I need to go now,” Yuuri announced, pushing himself up from the toilet floor.

Viktor scurried up after him, following Yuuri quickly out of the bathroom to the hotel room door.

“Yuuri—I—I’m sorry,” Viktor said, his voice pleading.

“It’s fine, Viktor,” Yuuri murmured as he pulled open the door and stepped out of the room. “This has nothing to do with you, okay?”

But, that was a lie, of course. This had everything to do with him.

But that was exactly why, nonetheless, Yuuri let the door fall shut before walking away.

*

“I’ll stay for the exhibition and the banquet and I’ll fly back with you to Detroit,” Yuuri announced to Celestino as the man opened the door of their hotel room to him.

He’d forgotten a key, of course, when he’d fled the room to confront Viktor. This time though, Yuuri at least knew where his room was and had stood patiently at the door, waiting for Celestino to answer it.

“I have a couple finals I need to take for school, but when they’re done, I’m going to Japan for the winter break. I don’t know if I’ll compete in nationals. I don’t know if I’ll come back to Detroit afterwards,” Yuuri continued. “I might never skate again, and that is my choice, do you understand?”

For a second, Celestino just looked at him.

“But you’ll finish the competition?” he asked finally.

“Yes,” Yuuri said, nodding.

And he would.

Because as much as Viktor didn’t have a right to insist he finish the season, he was right. Yuuri would never escape, not really, if he gave one single performance like that and then never skated again. He did need to prove himself. He needed to prove that he didn’t need to prove himself to anyone.

But he didn’t have to go to nationals, or Four Continents, or the World Championships to prove that. He had a chance that very day, to give one final farewell performance. To give a final statement to the world. To say thank you and goodbye.

He couldn’t change his exhibition music, that was submitted at registration and Yuuri didn’t want the hassle of trying to see if he could get them to let him change it last minute.  

But he could change the program. He could skate however he wanted. His exhibition that year hadn’t been a bad program, after all, but Yuuri could definitely make it better.

So he’d skate the exhibition. And he’d go to the closing banquet and let whoever could muster up the courage congratulate him or interrogate him or whatever it was they wanted to do like a good little skater.

And then he’d leave, and he’d go to Detroit. And he’d spend a few days with Phichit, cramming for finals he hopefully remembered enough of the material for to pass.

And then he’d go to Japan, and he’d decide the rest of his life from there.

“Okay,” Celestino said simply, stepping aside so Yuuri could step into the hotel room.

And with a nod, Yuuri did, the door falling shut behind him.

*

“And we’re back at the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating in Sochi, Russia for the exhibition programs,” a man announced. There was an ice rink in the background, little figures racing around it—skaters in their warm up. A woman sat beside him. “We’ve reached the portion of the evening that many have been waiting for, the exhibitions for the senior men’s singles skaters. Medalists Christophe Giacometti, Yuuri Katsuki, and of course the champion Viktor Nikiforov will be performing programs.”

“It really has been a special Final this year for the senior men,” the woman said.

“That seems like a bit of an understatement,” the man said with a chuckle.

The woman also laughed pleasantly.

“Yes, of course,” she said. “For anyone just tuning in, an upset yesterday has left the figure skating world in a bit of shock. Yuuri Katsuki from Japan, who was in last after the short program, delivered a world record breaking free skate, breaking the score previously held by Russia’s previously undefeated Nikiforov, scoring more than 200-points for the first time for a free skate, and launching him into silver. This would be shocking enough, but Katsuki’s new record surpassed his old personal best by almost forty points, which is unprecedented.”

“Do you think there is any stake to the doping accusations that are beginning to arise?” the man asked.

“I really don’t think so, to be honest,” the woman said, looking pensive. “Most performance-enhancers are steroids that improve performance overtime. While athletes have used faster acting stimulants occasionally, I don’t think a stimulant could solely explain a performance like Yuuri delivered. A stimulant doesn’t magically give a skater the ability to perform a quad flip, certainly, that takes practice,” the woman said lightly.

“He mentioned at a press conference yesterday that he’d previously felt held back in competition by performance anxiety, do you think he may have taken something to help with his nerves that allowed him to give a performance like that?” the man asked.

“Perhaps, but again, I really do doubt it. And I should also note that the ISU has not announced an investigation yet, and no national federation has called for one as of this point,” the woman said pragmatically. “And while I don’t have answers for how Yuuri was able to give the performance he did, I’m not sure his performance was as a long shot as many may less familiar with skating and Yuuri think. Katsuki has held a lot of reverence in the skating community for years with his performance scores. It was the technical element, mainly the quads that are so highly favored under the current scoring system, that were holding him back. Yuuri’s performance scores though have been consistently some of the highest among the men’s seniors a few seasons now.”

“So it wouldn’t be unreasonable, then, for Katsuki to have, for example, been training the two quads he debuted yesterday, the salchow and the flip, and to have decided to debut them spontaneously as a way to try and fight himself back from a disastrous short program?” the man followed up.

“I believe so,” the woman said with a nod. “It is again still extraordinary and unprecedented, but I don’t think that it’s technically speaking as impossible as some are currently calling it.”

“And what about his claim for a mid-season retirement?”

The woman shook her head, her lips pursed.

“I honestly don’t know how to take that. Maybe in his program today we’ll be able to get a sense of Katsuki’s thoughts on his career.”

“But obviously he has no reason to retire,” the man said.

“No, definitely no reason from a performance or skill standpoint, but there are lots of other reasons for a skater to retire. To train so quickly in order to be able to skate like he did, it’s quite possible that he’s burnt himself out.”

“There was a lot of emotion for him after his free skate yesterday, but not the kind of emotion one would expect after a record-breaking program,” the man said.

“No,” the woman sighed, looking sympathetic. “He looked like he’d given everything he had to that performance. We’ll have to see what exactly it is he has left today.”

“Well we won’t have to wait very long, let’s go down live to the ice for Christophe Giacometti’s program. He’ll be first up, followed by Katsuki, and then of course Viktor Nikiforov—their medal order,” the man announced.

“In addition to Yuuri’s Viktor’s performance will definitely be one to watch as well,” the woman added. “He’s due to debut a new exhibition this season, changing it up from the exhibitions at Skate Canada and the Rostelecom Cup. He might have something new to tell us as well through this performance, particularly after yesterday.”

“It certainly is an interesting time in figure skating, indeed.”

*

Yuuri was going to marathon quads, he’d decided.

And he was going to do it in the second half.

He might not be able to land them all, Yuuri had never tried something like this, even in his time—and this body was just ever so slightly different from the one he was used to, although certainly not remotely as out of shape as Yuuri had sometime claimed back in this time.

But Yuuri didn’t really care if he fell, that wasn’t the point. He’d land as many as he could and that would be a statement enough.

The worst thing that could happen is he’d injure himself.

It occurred to Yuuri, as he skated the first half of his exhibition skate, trying as much as he could to give an effortless looking masterclass in movement and footwork, that that wasn’t actually a bad idea.

Maybe he could purposefully land a bit wrong, see if he could snap and ankle and end his career. Nobody could say anything about him retiring then.

But Yuuri knew he wouldn’t be able to do that. Everything he’d been training for his entire life, years of muscle memory would likely make it physically impossible for him to do something like that on purpose without a great deal of determination. It was one thing to fall like you had done entirely on accident a thousand times without injury and this time happen to catch yourself in a certain way that finally caused something to crack. It would be another for Yuuri to try and position himself to break.

Plus it would hurt.

Yuuri was quickly beginning to be over hurting.

So Yuuri gave and gave and gave everything he had in him for that performance. Exhibitions were supposed to be a time for skaters personalities to shine. But the thing was, Yuuri wasn’t sure who he was yet in this new life.

But, he could give every last bit of his former self.

Celestino had said his free skate yesterday had been like a rebirth, which made Yuuri’s stomach twist at the time, but now Yuuri was beginning to think that maybe there was something to that.

Maybe Yuuri could leave everything he used to be out here on the ice and walk away a free man, ready to build himself back from scratch.

And so Yuuri threw himself into his first combination, starting with a quad toe loop.

And he just didn’t stop.

The music for this program built in the second half into some kind of manic euphoria, and Yuuri was glad for that coincidence, because he just let himself take off with it.

He looped through combination after combination, jump after jump.

He fumbled on his second quad salchow, touching down on the ice. But it didn’t matter—Yuuri gave and gave and gave.

He wasn’t going to add any “new” quads, even though he did have the loop down solidly and probably couldn’t land but at least get the rotations in for a Lutz, but the lie Celestino was currently believing might fall through if he debuted anymore, so instead he worked with the three he had, putting them in difficult combinations, and ending of course with a quad flip.

In the minute and thirty seconds that made up the second half of his program, he’d done four quads, and six across his program.

It was show-off-y. It wasn’t necessary, particularly for an exhibition.

But as Yuuri finished and stood panting on the ice he felt gloriously empty.

He didn’t have anything left to prove. He didn’t have anything left to fight for or against.

He was ready to start to move on.

*

It took about fifteen minutes for Yuuri to regret agreeing to go to the banquet.

It turns out, no one really seemed to know how to talk to him, his exhibition obviously not helping the matter.

For the first fifteen minute, things had been alright. Celestino had led Yuuri around the banquet—making the rounds. When they’d talked to a group of ISU officials, it had been a bit awkward, the implications of the investigation everyone knew was coming hanging in the air—there was no way the Russian Federation wouldn’t call for one with their champion usurped. Yuuri of course knew he had nothing to hide, though, and probably would have preferred a medic pulled him aside yesterday and ask for a blood sample and been done with it, rather than play the awkward waiting game they seemed to be playing now for who knows what reason.

But none the less they’d all congratulated him, and Celestino had acted a little proud which was almost nice, and Yuuri felt validated in his decision to try and do what he was supposed to do in finishing out the competitions events.

But then, Celestino had gotten caught up in a conversation with another coach, and Yuuri had wandered off, becoming painfully aware of how little friends 2014 Yuuri had in figure skating, or anywhere, probably.

Yuuri had many fond memories of banquets with Viktor, Chris, Phichit, Yuri, and miscellaneous other friends and acquaintances, developing camaraderie over the inherently kind of awkward parties that the ISU more or less paid them to attend.  

For about half a minute, Yuuri considered having a second glass of champagne, and then a third and fourth and fifth, just like he’d done at this banquet the first time around. But Yuuri knew he couldn’t, he had too many secrets and was too loosely held together right now for something like that.

So instead he’d gone to the toilets and loitered there a bit too long, fussing with his suit in the mirror.

He was only going to stay for an hour—that had been the agreement he’d made with Celestino. He would stay just for the mixer, right up until the ISU president made his remarks at nine o’clock, and then he could cut out.

But after fifteen minutes doing rounds with Celestino and fifteen minutes hiding out in the restroom, Yuuri still had half an hour left with nothing to do.

With a sigh, Yuuri made his way over to the buffet, grabbing a plate of little appetizers and a second glass of champagne.

It was as he turned away from the table that he collided with someone.

“Sorry,” Yuuri said instinctively, turning around and holding his hands out in an apology. He froze though when he saw Viktor, with Chris standing nearby—clearly trying and failing to keep the Russian champion from falling over himself.

“Yuuri!” Viktor gasped and Yuuri realized in an instant that he was drunk. “Congratulations! I’m not sure I ever told you,” Viktor smiled and fell into Yuuri, catching himself with a hand on Yuuri’s chest. “Is that why you’re so cross with me?”

“Shit Chris,” Yuuri said, electing to ignore Viktor because it was easier. “How much has he had? It’s only been half an hour.”

“Keeping track of time, are we? I can’t imagine why ever you would want to leave this glorious event,” Chris teased knowingly. “And he’s only had four glasses of champagne, but I think he raided last night’s leftovers after the exhibition. You really should have come out last night, darling, it would have saved me a host of trouble.”

Yuuri didn’t at all care to know what that meant.

“Well, he can’t be here like this,” Yuuri said frustratedly.

“Why not?” Viktor asked, trying to stand up straight and failing, catching himself on the buffet table.

Yuuri closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Because,” was all he managed to say, his tone exasperated.

They were half an hour into the banquet. The ISU president hadn’t even given his remarks yet. When Yuuri had gotten completely hammered, he’d at least had the sense to do it later in the banquet, after the event changed from a more formal mixer in the first hour to something almost akin to an actual party afterwards.

But Viktor was the five-time Grand Prix Champion. It just wasn’t acceptable. It wasn’t.

“Why aren’t you drinking more Yuuri, aren’t you sad too?” Viktor said, his voice slurring. “You told me you were sad and that’s why you won’t skate anymore.”

“Chris, get him out of here,” Yuuri said insistently, deciding that ignoring Viktor was the better option right now. “Go tell Yakov he’s fallen ill and take him back to his room.”

Chris raised his hands like he was innocent and took a step back.

“Oh no, Yuuri, if you think this is a problem you can deal with this. I on the other hand,” Chris paused, picked up a glass of champagne, and took a sip, “Think this is setting up to be very entertaining. Banquets can be so boring, you know.”

Yuuri did know, or at least he knew that’s how Chris felt, certainly. That’s why at this banquet the first time Chris had been happy to strip and pole dance with Yuuri. Chris didn’t have any shame, and the world already knew it. And at every banquet there was also at least one skater who drowned themselves in the open bar and made an embarrassment of themselves.  

But that person could not be Viktor Nikiforov.

One-half of the fourth-place ice dancing team, sure. A junior skater who had just turned eighteen and was about to be forced into the senior division even though they probably couldn’t hack it despite their silver medal, probably. The senior men’s singles skater who had come in sixth place, definitely.

But not the five-time Grand Prix Final Champion Viktor Nikiforov.

Yuuri let out an exasperated groan.

“You should leave, Viktor,” Yuuri decided to say, helplessly.

“Why should I leave when no one else is, the parties not over,” Viktor said. “We’re supposed to celebrate Yuuri!” Viktor said, picking up a glass of champagne and downing it in one go.

Yuuri closed his eyes and tried to take a calming breath.

He opened his eyes and focused back in on Chris, Viktor was starting to hurt too much to look at again.

“Chris, please,” Yuuri pleaded. “This isn’t funny.”

“Oh no, I didn’t say it would be funny. But it will be entertaining and needed none the less.”

It was then, of course, that Yuri Plisetsky came storming up to them.

“Hey, what the fuck is going on here?” he spat. “And why did you say you would retire yesterday when you promised me you wouldn’t.”

Viktor’s mouth fell open in a gape at that.

“Yuuri!” he gasped, sounding outraged. Whatever it was he said next though, Yuuri didn’t know since the words came out in Russian, but whatever it was it certainly outraged Yuri.

“What the fuck is wrong with him?” Yuri asked.

Oh god, why was this happening? This was not how Yuuri wanted to use his new found almost maybe okay feeling. He’d just managed to get himself together enough for now, he’d almost made it through the competition, and now this was happening, and Yuuri couldn’t bear it.

He began to feel exhausted again, the weight of the day wearing on him suddenly.

“Could you please stop swearing, Yura?” Yuuri said tiredly, not sure what else to do anymore.

“What? Who said you could call me that?” Yuri spat at the same moment Viktor whispered to himself, seeming scandalized, “ _Yura?_ ”

But then Viktor tried to take a step forwards and fell. He would have fallen flat on his face if Yuuri hadn’t managed to catch him.

And that was the moment that Yuuri realized he was going to have to deal with this, because this reality he’d found himself in was a cruel one.

Because apparently this new version of him felt just as obligated to take care of people as the old version of himself did.

“Okay,” Yuuri announced. “Here’s what we’re going to do. Yuri, you’re going to go tell your coach that Viktor has gotten sick and is leaving early. Chris, you’re going to well, I don’t care,” Yuuri said, his voice angry now and almost wanting to say something uncharacteristically harsh. “And I’m going to get Viktor up to his room. Are we all clear?”

“Woah, Yuuri, relax,” Chris said, apparently finally catching on to the fact that Yuuri was not messing around. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I just thought it would be good to—”

“To what?” Yuuri said, the anger flying out of him a second after it had come, and the tiredness settling back in.

Chris just blinked at him for a second, eyes flitting back and forth between him and Viktor.

“I’ll go tell your coach that you had to step out,” Chris said instead of whatever he’d initially intended.

“Thank you,” Yuuri said softly, meaning it.

With a nod, Chris walked off and Yuuri readjusted his grip around Viktor.

“We’re going to have to walk now, Viktor, can you do that?” Yuuri asked the other man gently.

Viktor only mumbled something in Russian, but Yuuri took a step towards the door and prayed Viktor would manage to work it out.

“Wait!” Yuri said. “Why should I cover for this idiot?”

Yuuri sighed and almost found himself shaking his head fondly. Yuri was _so young_.

“You’re not covering for him, Yura, Yakov isn’t an idiot. He’s not going to think Viktor just got a headache or ate some bad fish,” Yuuri explained.

“Oh,” Yuri said. “Fine. But I’m never doing either of you a favor again.”

“I certainly hope you don’t have to,” Yuuri said in response.

And with that, he started taking slow, careful steps towards the exit, Viktor stumbling but for the most part managing, along beside him.

Viktor continued to babble in Russian, but his voice was so quiet and slurred that even if Yuuri had known any of the words he was saying, he wouldn’t have been able to discern them.

It took an unbearably long time to drag Viktor across the hotel from the ballroom up to his room on the fourth floor, but eventually they made it back to his room.

“Do you have your key?” Yuuri asked.

“My key?” Viktor repeated, as if he was just remembering that he spoke English. “Um, my pocket.”

“You’re going to have to get it yourself Viktor,” Yuuri said, but Viktor didn’t move.

Sighing, Yuuri delicately slid a hand into Viktor’s front pants pocket and thankfully found the key card there.

It took another moment to figure out how to unlock the door, open it, and not let Viktor fall to the floor, but soon enough they were standing inside the room, the door falling shut behind them.

“Okay, Viktor, to bed,” Yuuri said, leading the man over to the bed.

Viktor collapsed down onto the edge.

“Stay there, let me grab you some water,” Yuuri said. “Try to maybe get off your jacket while I’m gone, it can’t be comfortable to sleep in.”

And with that, Yuuri left Viktor and slipped into the bathroom. He filled a cup with water and when he noticed a bottle of pain relievers already sitting on the counter, he took out two.

When he got back to the bedroom, he’d found that Viktor had somehow managed to get completely changed, now wearing a t-shirt and a pair of joggers, although the t-shirt was clearly on backwards.

Yuuri was honestly a little surprised.

“Okay,” Yuuri said, walking back over to stand in front of where Viktor was sitting on the edge of the bed, “Hydrate,” he said, holding out the water and the pills.

Viktor smiled at him, a sleepy grin spreading out across his face.

“Sit down with me?” Viktor bartered, although his voice still slurred a bit. And for whatever reason Yuuri did, taking a seat gingerly down on  the edge of the bed a careful distance away from Viktor before handing him the pills.

Viktor swallowed the pills without question and drank the water.

“Why are you being so nice to me now,” Viktor asked. “I haven’t been very nice to you.”

“You haven’t done anything, Viktor.”

“Yes I did,” Viktor said. “I tried to make you skate when you didn’t want to. I,” he hiccupped. “I invited someone back with me even though I wanted—” Viktor stopped, his voice trailing off. Whether he’d forgotten what he was saying or decided against it, Yuuri didn’t know.

“It’s fine,” Yuuri said. “I said it was fine.”

Viktor didn’t say anything, instead he just handed Yuuri back the now empty glass.

“You should get into bed,” Yuuri said in the silence.

“I am tired,” Viktor said. “And my head—it feels like it’s over there,” Viktor said, sticking out and arm and gesturing across the room at nowhere in particular.

Without thinking about it, a gentle smile spread across Yuuri’s lips. 

“I’m sure it does,” Yuuri said gently, standing up so that he could tug the duvet down so Viktor could slide under it. Viktor did so, although he didn’t fully lie down, and instead collapsed back against the headboard, sticking just his legs under the covers.

Yuuri sat back down on the edge of the bed next to him. Viktor closed his eyes and let his head fall back against the headboard.

“If you retire, then I’m going to retire,” Viktor murmured, his eyes still closed.

Yuuri inhaled sharply in surprise.

“That would be a silly thing to do,” he said quickly, knowing Viktor was very drunk and probably didn’t mean it.

“No it’s not,” Viktor said, opening his eyes back up. They were still tired looking, but suddenly brighter now. “You’re the one being,” Viktor reached up and swatted Yuuri right in the face, palm collapsing against Yuuri’s chin and finger tips poking into his nose and cheeks, “Silly.”

“Hm,” Yuuri hummed passively and grabbed ahold of Viktor’s wrist and gently pulled the other man’s hand off his face. Viktor seemed to take the silence though as an invitation to keep talking.

“You skate silly good. No there are better words, da? Stupid good? No, crazy good. Yes, crazy good,” Viktor muttered, then he began to talk in Russian again. The words were clearer though this time, and Yuuri could make out a phrase Viktor has said enough times that he knew what it meant instantly.

“Ty krasivyy,” Viktor murmured. _You’re beautiful._

A feeling at the familiar words on Viktor’s lips caused a funny feeling in Yuuri’s chest. It wasn’t hurt this time though. No, it was something else—something a little older and familiar.

“You’re the person that taught me to be beautiful like that,” Yuuri said, his voice barely audible. Somehow Viktor seemed to hear it anyway.

“Me?”

“I should get going,” Yuuri said, standing up from the bed.

Viktor murmured something in Russian again that this time he didn’t catch and Yuuri made his way over to the door.

“Yuuri, wait,” Viktor called out as Yuuri opened the door. Yuuri looked back to the bed where Viktor lay.

“Goodnight,” he said with a yawn.

“Goodnight, Vitya,” Yuuri said gently, before closing the door behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *trumpet noises* 
> 
> I've been writing for seven hours straight today (and I don't even mean that hyperbolically, I'm working with my therapist to develop a more diverse array of healthy-ish coping mechanisms besides writing I swear) trying to finish up this monster chapter. I hope it didn't suck. :)


	5. The Best Way Out is Always Through

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And instead of mourning the loss of the love of his life, Yuuri found himself being angry at Viktor Nikiforov like a petulant child

Yuuri was in the lake again.

This time, though, he didn’t feel anything.

He was just floating there, under the water, weightless.

And he wondered, for a moment, why he never had his eyes closed. He wondered why they didn’t burn in the icy waters of the lake and cause him to squish his eyes shut on instinct.

But the answer was obvious in a way that Yuuri knew without really having to think about it.

If he’d had his eyes closed, he wouldn’t have been able to see Viktor floating there in the water in front of him.

If he’d had his eyes closed, he wouldn’t have been able to see that the other man was holding him, hands wrapped around Yuuri’s arms.

He wouldn’t have been able to see that this time, the other man wasn’t trying to pull Yuuri back to the surface. Instead, he was just there, floating with Yuuri in the shimmering blue-grey of the pond.

He wouldn’t have been able to see that Viktor’s icy blue eyes were open too—and looking straight at Yuuri.

Neither of them blinked.

That was, anyway, until after a brief eternity, Viktor’s eyes gently slid shut. A second later he released Yuuri’s arms and he began to float backwards, away from Yuuri.

Yuuri watched as Viktor fell away from him, looking ghostly and ethereal with his pale skin almost glowing in the rays of light that pierced the pond and his silver hair billowing around his face in the water.

He watched as Viktor’s lips parted slightly, pulling in just enough water into his lungs to drown him, his slack body too surrendered to fight it.

Yuuri knew why his eyes were open.

Because the second he shut them, the dream would stop.

*

“Yuuri,” Phichit said. “Yuuri.”

Yuuri awoke with a gasp to find that he’d fallen asleep over his notes at the kitchen table, the spiral binding of a notebook branding into his face.

He sat up to see that Phichit was standing in front of him, still in his pajamas, looking at Yuuri worriedly.

“This is the third time this has happened this week.”

Yuuri hadn’t had much time for sleeping since he’d gotten back to Detroit from Russia, often instead collapsing on piles of notebooks and highlighters at the kitchen table, or on the couch, or in the library, or anywhere, really.

Apparently, he didn’t remember as much of the material from his courses two years ago as he’d hoped.

He’d almost considered giving up on the idea of retaking his exams and graduating, since he technically had already done it once, but he’d talked himself down from that, deciding it was important for him to still have a degree formally in this new version of his life.

So he studied, and studied, and studied. And Phichit would stumble across him passed out in uncomfortable positions, as he had this morning.

But then, Phichit wasn’t really talking about Yuuri’s new penchant for using textbooks for pillows.

“Sorry,” Yuuri mumbled, wiping at the tear stain on his cheek.

He didn’t wake up from the dreams sobbing anymore, at least.

“I—” Phichit said. “I just don’t know what to do.”

“You don’t have to do anything,” Yuuri said, flipping shut a textbook and pulling his study materials together into a pile.

“I—maybe you should talk to someone,” Phichit suggested helplessly.

“Maybe,” Yuuri said in a way that he knew Phichit could tell meant _almost definitely not_.

But the fact of the matter was that Yuuri couldn’t exactly see a therapist for what had happened to him.  He couldn’t exactly talk to anyone about that.

Because while dying traumatically had inevitably inflicted him with some kind of PTSD, it seemed—well that’s the thing wasn’t it? He had died traumatically.

People aren’t supposed to go to therapy after dying traumatically. They are supposed to be dead.

Yuuri wasn’t sure if anyone else in the history of the universe had ever died and woken up in their past life, but he imagined that the side effects he seemed to be experiencing were relatively normal and in line with the level of grief that was to be expected.

He just wished that every time he fell asleep he would stop dreaming of Viktor.

It was growing less and less painful and more and more exhausting every time it happened, which felt wrong.

It felt wrong to get used to losing Viktor.

“I—” Phichit sighed. “I was going to go to the rink later today, do you want to come?”

Yuuri smiled politely at his friend.

“No thanks,” Yuuri said. “Today’s the last day of the reading period. I’ve got my first exam tomorrow. And an essay due the day after.”

“Oh. Right.”

For a moment there was awkward silence. Yuuri knew Phichit wanted to ask him if he ever planned on skating again, but the younger skater had been fairly good at restraining himself since Yuuri had returned from Russia.

But admittedly, Yuuri had gotten rather good at being evasive.

“I think I’m going to go to the library,” Yuuri said, checking his watch. “It’s still early, I might be able to get a good spot,” he explained as he began to shove his books into his backpack. “See you later.”

And with that Yuuri slung his bag over his shoulder and left their apartment before Phichit could even say goodbye.

*

Yuuri had successfully spent all day in the library—fueling himself on muffins and pre-packed sushi from the library’s café, pounding out one of his essays and doing dozens of practice questions.

He had admittedly fallen asleep for a while, just a brief crash, barely twenty minutes—not long enough to dream. Not long enough to end up back in the pond or curled up in an imagined hospital bed with Viktor.

But after a solid twelve plus hours of work, Yuuri couldn’t take it anymore and had resigned himself to calling it a night. He’d been staring at the same page of his notes for twenty minutes, trying to read the same sentence but getting lost in thought and exhaustion before getting to the end and starting over again. It wasn’t productive, and Yuuri could feel the weight of sleep starting to settle on him as his arm began to collapse under where it was holding up his head.

But once Yuuri made it back to his and Phichit’s apartment and was standing in the dimly lit living room, staring at his bedroom door, Yuuri found himself on edge.

The apartment was quiet. Phichit was probably long asleep, he had exams the next morning as well.

Yuuri shut his eyes for a moment and took a slow breath, trying to shake the unsteady feeling of impending doom that was soaking over him and the discomfort of feeling like he was spiraling out of a life that didn’t belong to him.

“Okay, Katsuki,” he whispered to himself. “Everything is fine. This is fine.”

But as he stood alone in the dark of this apartment and this part of his life that he’d already said goodbye too once, he didn’t feel fine at all.

And so he did the only thing he knew—he grabbed the bag with his skates from the cubby where they were stored by the front door and left.

*

The ice was smooth and Yuuri was skating Stammi Vicino on it.

The music played in wireless earbuds straight into his brain, blocking out all other sound, and the familiar and meaningful song made his heart clench, but Yuuri just kept skating.

He thought about how the last time he’d skated Viktor’s program roughly around this time in his life he’d been caught by Yuuko’s children and gone viral on the internet for all the world including Viktor Nikiforov to see.

There was no one to spy on him now though. Maybe he could go back to Hasetsu and skate Viktor’s program, skate it again and again and again until sooner or later maybe the triplets would catch him and post it online.

Maybe it would spur Viktor to chase him across the world again and pull him out of retirement.

_Maybe._

_Maybe._

Yuuri threw himself into a quad flip.

 _No_ , Yuuri knew as he glided out of the landing.

Yuuri didn’t know what he was doing in this life, but he couldn’t try to manipulate things into happening over again. Just because he knew that Viktor had once loved him, didn’t mean the man deserved to be manipulated into falling for him again.

Yuuri would always feel guilty for that, if that happened.

If this Viktor happened to fall in love with him, by complete chance then—

 _No_ , Yuuri couldn’t even consider such things.

He couldn’t think about a drunken Viktor telling him he was _crazy_ good at skating and calling him beautiful.

Particularly not when at the other end of a dream, his Viktor was still always there, waiting to live out a life they would never get to have together, and for Yuuri to always have to leave too soon. Over and over again so many times it felt like now the only thing that was true was that he was destined to lose Viktor.

And then there was the even more terrifying possibility that Viktor might not want him this time around. Maybe the circumstances had been too perfect, maybe it was all too once-in-a-lifetime for Yuuri to replicate even if he wanted to. Things were too different now. He’d already had his one lifetime.

It was a shame though how he lost either way now—how it was just as hard for him to wake up from a dream as it was for him to go to sleep. How hard it was for him to skate and how hard for him it was to not. How hard it was to look at Viktor and how hard it was to look away.

Yuuri pulled himself into the final pose of Viktor’s program, panting.

He held the pose until his arms hurt.

*

“I’m afraid, Vitya,” Yuuri said. “Maybe—maybe I should just retire. I don’t know how I can—not after what happened.”

Yuuri bit his lip as he looked up at Viktor.

They were standing together at the edge of the rink at Ice Castle. Morning light shined in through the windows around the top of the building.

“Is that really what you want?” Viktor said softly, reaching out to cup Yuuri’s cheek in his hand.

Yuuri nuzzled his cheek against the other man’s hand.

“No.”

“But you’re still afraid.”

“Yes.”

“Could you skate with me, start there?” Viktor asked. “No jumps, just—we can do the Stammi Vicino duet.”

Viktor looked at Yuuri, but for a long moment Yuuri said nothing.

Finally, he nodded.

“Yeah?” Viktor asked softly.

Yuuri nodded again, a little more vigorously this time and Viktor caught his chin between his pointer finger and thumb and tilted Yuuri’s head up to place a kiss on his lips.

“I’ll be right here with you, my Yuuri. Always,” Viktor whispered.

Yuuri smiled for a second, but then in an instant something seemed to fracture, and he turned his head away, shaking himself out of it.

“But you won’t.”

*

“Yuuri?” a voice called to him. “What are you doing here?”

Yuuri blinked up to see Celestino looking down at him.

“Huh?” Yuuri mumbled, immediately sitting up. It was then he realized he was lying on a bench beside the ice rink in Detroit.

He must have fallen asleep there after his late-night skate session.

He still had his skates on.

What had he been thinking?

“Oh, sorry,” Yuuri murmured, rubbing the back on his stiff neck. Rink benches didn’t make for comfortable beds. “I must have fallen asleep. I’ll get going. You probably have practices to start. I don’t want to get in the way.”

“You wouldn’t be getting in the way, Yuuri.”

“No, I uh, shit!” Yuuri exclaimed as he remembered something, checking his watch. “I have a final in twenty minutes on the west side of campus!”

Celestino just looked at Yuuri for a moment, probably wanting to say a million different things.

“Well, you best get going then.”

Yuuri was already taking off his skates and running barefoot down the edge of the rink to look for his bag and his shoes.

“If you want a session with me though, just let me know. We can find some room in the schedule,” Celestino said as Yuuri frantically stuffed his feet into his shoes and stuffed his skates into their bag.

Yuuri looked up at his coach for a moment and offered the smallest quirk of a smile at the offering before throwing his bag over his shoulder and running out of the arena.

*

“So you’re—” Phichit said quietly as he walked into his and Yuuri’s apartment that was now piled with boxes and luggage. “You were serious?"

“About what?” Yuuri asked as he taped a label to a box addressed to Hasetsu. He’d finished all his finals and was almost ready to go back to Japan. He had a couple boxes of things that he wanted to ship back that he’d drop off on the way to the airport tomorrow, but he’d somehow, finally, made it to his last night in Detroit.

It in this moment though occurred to him that he may have never explicitly told Phichit when he was leaving. Or that he was leaving at all.

Well, it seems he’s figured it out now.

“About all of it, I guess,” Phichit said.

Yuuri looked over to see Phichit surveying the chaos, his backpack falling off his shoulder and onto the ground with a thump.

“Retiring. Going back to Japan and staying there,” he clarified.

“Even if I skate again, I’d train in Japan,” Yuuri said matter-of-factly, keeping his attention on the task at hand and taping shut another box.

“Oh,” Phichit said. “Okay.”

Yuuri turned back around again to look at his friend. It hurt a bit to see how dejected the young Thai skater looked.

Yuuri knew how Phichit had been saddened when Yuuri left the first time. Although Phichit was far more outgoing than Yuuri was, he had difficulties connecting with people on deeper levels. His and Yuuri’s friendship had been kind of uniquely intense for both of them. And Yuuri had walked away from it easily the first time around—so caught up in his own mess. He hadn’t realized and Phichit hadn’t really let on to how much he’d been hurt by it until much later.

“If you want, you can come visit me this summer,” Yuuri offered.

Phichit whipped his head up to look at Yuuri, clearly a bit taken-aback.

“Oh? Really?”

“Yeah,” Yuuri confirmed. “If you want. And have the time. I know you usually go to Thailand for a few weeks in the summer though, maybe you could coordinate a sort of extended layover in Japan.”

“Yeah,” Phichit said, scratching the back of his neck. “I guess I could.”

“I could probably even meet you in Tokyo if that would be easier.”

“I think I’d like to see your hometown,” Phichit said softly.

“I’d like to show it to you,” Yuuri smiled gently.

“So,” Phichit paused. “We’re still friends?”

“What?” Yuuri asked a little shocked, immediately putting down his roll of packing tape and stepping toward Phichit. “Of course.”

Phichit sighed and collapsed down onto the couch.

“Things have just been weird—you’ve been weird—since Russia. I know your dog died, but you—you’re so different. And you won’t talk to me about it,” Phichit said. “I thought, I thought when you got back we’d order a lot of take out and do a _King and the Skater_ marathon. And you would tell me all about finally meeting Viktor. And cry about Vicchan. And maybe Viktor. But instead you just studied. And—and had nightmares. And it’s been like living with a ghost.”

Yuuri froze. He could have laughed at the irony if his heart didn’t suddenly hurt so much.

“I—” Yuuri stammered, not sure what to say. “I—” Yuuri tried again, but then sighed. “Did I tell you that Viktor got drunk at the closing banquet?”

For a second Phichit just looked at him, his brow knit. Then, tentatively, he smiled.

“No?” Phichit asked. “How drunk?”

“Like he could barely stand up straight. And Chris was just happy to let him fall on his face into the middle of the buffet table.”

“Christophe Giacometti?”

“Yeah, and so I had to drag Viktor out of the hotel ballroom and all the way back to his room.”

“You _what_?”

Yuuri shrugged, going over to sit down on the couch beside Phichit.

“So are you and Viktor, like, friends?”

“What no, of course not.”

Phichit just rolled his eyes.

“So do you want pizza or Mexican?” Phichit asked.

“There is no Mexican place that delivers to our apartment, or possibly just in the state of Michigan in general,” Yuuri said skeptically.

“We could walk to the Taco Bell down the street!”

Yuuri gave him a look.

“Fine, I’ll call for the pizza. But for being so mean to me we’re making our _The King and the Skater_ viewing a sing along.”

“You say that as if it’s ever not been a sing along.”

“Then I’m also getting pineapple on the pizza!”

“Phichit! No!” Yuuri cried and made to snatch Phichit’s phone out of his hands, but Phichit dived over the back of the couch, Domino’s app open on his phone.

*

Yuuri sat on the train back to Hasetsu, bored out of his mind. Yuuri traveled enough for competition that he had a decent repertoire of personal entertainment ideas built up, but he was antsier to get to his destination than he usually was.

He was going home.

While Viktor had on many occasions told him cheesily that “home is wherever I’m with you,” and Yuuri had agreed to appease him, for Yuuri there was a distinction between person-home and home-home. Home-home was Hasetsu.

What he’d wanted of course was to take Viktor home again, the next time he went. But well, that option was off the table right now, and Yuuri had cried about it so much now that he was apparently running out of tears. He didn’t shed any when he woke up from his dreams now, in fact. 

And even if he was going home without Viktor, he knew it was what he needed none the less.

And yet he still had another hour on the train.

He let his head fall against the cold window with a smack in frustration.

With a sigh, he took out his phone and clicked it on.

He’d avoided his phone for the past week, choosing instead to bury himself in his studying and not particularly interested in seeing what the internet had to say about him, or possibly Viktor, or well, anything, probably.

But there had been enough time now that the members of the skating community he followed on social media probably wouldn’t be talking about the Grand Prix anymore. He could open up Instagram and quickly catch up on all the dogs and food blogs he followed.

But the second Yuuri opened that app, he noticed all the notifications he had. There was a little dot on one of the bottom icons telling him that people had interacted with him. That wasn’t terribly unusual, essentially, even before.

But there was also a little badge notifying him that he had a message (messages?).

All Yuuri wanted to do was look at pictures of dogs and Japanese food, why did such a pure experience have to be ruined by social interaction?

In a moment or empowerment or perhaps frustration, Yuuri clicked into his messages.

He had a bunch of requests from people who he didn’t follow that he immediately deleted without even looking at. Most of them were probably bots, anyway.

But then he noticed a message from someone he did know and follow.

**yuri_plisetsky**

_Hey idiot, I know that you are_

The preview cut off before he could get a sense of what the young Russian skater wanted, and so Yuuri hesitantly clicked into the message.

_Hey idiot, I know that you are all busy being a fucking coward, but stupid Viktor seems to think that I have your phone number and won’t stop asking about it, even though I’ve told him a dozen times I don’t. Fucking. Have. It. (OR give a fuck about you, by the way). But anyway, if you could at the very least text him and tell him to fuck off yourself so he stops bugging me that would be almost not horrible. His number is +7 812 432-46-87._

Yuuri snorted.

He could picture Viktor asking Yuri again and again for his number, probably not even really thinking through what it would mean to even have his number or how Yuuri might respond if he got a text out of no where from Viktor.

But if Yuuri knew anything about Viktor Nikiforov, it was that he almost never thought very far ahead, and he didn’t often consider the possibility of things not going well for him. At least not when it came to the pursuit of things he wanted.

And it was a tactic that for the most part worked for him.

People, Yuuri included, often had a hard time saying no to him. He could often make a pretty compelling case for himself, and if not, all he had to really do was make you look at him for long enough and you’d be mesmerized.

And it’s not as if Viktor Nikiforov was undeserving of getting most of the things he wanted.

But god was he ridiculous and why he apparently so stubbornly wanted to talk to Yuuri, he had no idea.

But he certainly was not going to text Viktor.

So instead he went back to clearing out the rest of his messages and went and caught up on all the dogs he followed.

*

Yuuri knelt in front of the little shrine that his family had erected for Vicchan.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t save you,” Yuuri whispered. “It’s not fair that you had to die twice. I—I’ve already died once so I know how awful it can be,” Yuuri said with a sad sort of half-smile.

He reached out to stroke a finger along the glass of Vicchan’s photo.

“Back—” Yuuri continued, hesitantly. It felt strange to talk aloud like this to himself and his dead dog. “Back in my other life, I met another poodle who I loved almost as much as you. Her name is Makkachin, she was like you, but bigger. She actually, well, she’s the reason I got you, or her owner—Viktor, I guess. Ma called him Vicchan, you know, too. It took me a while to own up to the fact that I’d named you after him, though Viktor figured it out way before I admitted it. But to be fair, I’d barely even expected to ever meet him, none the less for him to love me back.

“But well, he did, and I lost him, and you all in the same day. Or well, I guess not the same day, but it was the same day for me, in a sense. And it hurts—Vicchan. It hurts so much, and I don’t know what to do.”

There was a quiet cough from behind him and Yuuri immediately spun around to see Mari standing in the doorframe.

Yuuri gasped in surprise.

“How long have you been there?”

“Only a second,” she said. “Mom told me you’d just gotten back.”

“Oh,” Yuuri said. “Do you want to come pay your respects with me?” he asked.

Mari smiled sympathetically and nodded before kneeling down beside Yuuri.

“He was a good dog and he loved you very much,” Mari whispered.

“I know,” Yuuri said. “I’m sorry I haven’t been home in so long.”

“I’m not."

Yuuri turned his head to look at his sister in surprise.

“What?”

“We missed you, of course. But you were out there fighting for your dream.”

“I still could have made time,” Yuuri said. “I should have made time.”

“Yes, probably,” she said with a shrug.

Yuuri furrowed his brow.

“Well which one is it, then?”

“Are you going to Nationals?” Mari asked, not answering the question.

“I—I don’t know. Probably not. I haven't withdrawn yet, formally, but I’d need to be in Nagano in a week and a half.”

“That seems like plenty of time to get to Nagano. I’ll chip in money for you to fly and we’ll have you there in less than two hours.”

“You know that’s not what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean?”

“I’m—I’m tired Mari,” Yuuri said. “Losing Vicchan had made me realize how tired I am.”

“I know dogs are known for their unconditional love, so maybe he wouldn’t have cared, but as someone who loves you with a few more… hopes attached, I’d like to think that Vicchan would have been disappointed that his passing has resulted in you giving up.”

Yuuri didn’t know what to say to that, so he didn’t say anything.

“You’re a good person, Yuuri. You’ll figure it out,” Mari said, placing a hand on Yuuri’s shoulder and squeezing. “Mom also told me to let you know dinner would be ready soon. Katsudon for your win in Sochi.”

“I didn’t win,” Yuuri pointed out as Mari stood up.

“You won a silver medal,” Mari said, holding out a hand to help Yuuri up.

“But—” Yuuri continued to argue.

“Then in honor of Vicchan. We have no one to drop table scraps to anymore, so you’ll have to eat the whole thing for him.”

Yuuri smiled a bit at that and only slightly reluctantly took Mari’s hand and went out to the table to find his parents sitting and waiting for them, bowls of katsudon at the table.

“A toast?” his father said, immediately handing Yuuri and Mari a cup of sake as they sat down.

Yuuri nodded and raised the glass.

“To Vicchan,” Yuuri said immediately.

His family looked surprised for a moment at the choice, but quickly followed suit none the less.

“To Vicchan.”

*

Yuuri walked up to the skate counter at Ice Castle. He’d been back in Hasetsu for a couple days now and had avoided leaving the inn much in that way that he was so good at doing when the world and everyone in it was making him anxious.

But it was finally time to face some of his fears.

“One pair of skates please,” he said softly to the woman behind the counter whose back was currently turned to him.

“What size?” she asked before she finally turned around and gasped. “Yuuri! I know you don’t need rental skates, Mr. World Record Holder!” Yuuko exclaimed as she hurried out from behind the counter and gave Yuuri a hug. “Are you here to skate?”

“No,” Yuuri shook his head. “Just here to say hello. I was on my way to run an errand at the market for my mother.”

“Well if you ever want to skate, let me know,” she said earnestly. “Even after hours, you know you’re welcome.”

Yuuri smiled politely.

“Well can you chat for a few minutes, we have a lot to catch up on!" Yuuko said, leading Yuuri over to a bench in the middle of the lobby and sitting down with him.

“Like the fact that you’re married with children?” Yuuri asked, teasingly.

“Uck, that’s boring,” she said, but her smile was fond. “You on the other hand showed up Viktor Nikiforov on his quad flip and then beat his record.”

Yuuri shrugged.

“I think taking care of your family is a very honorable thing,” Yuuri said.

“Then I think maybe you should get out of here, because my girls are going to murder you for that retirement announcement. They’re too young for prison.”

“Oh, surely they don’t need to see me skate anymore—there are better skaters.”

Yuuko pursed her lips.

“We’re not sure there are,” she said, softly. “So you meant it then?”

“Yeah, I did.”

“Did, as in past tense? Have you reconsidered?”

“I—” Yuuri said but was interrupted by a scream. Or three.

“Katsuki Yuuri!”

“Girls, girls,” another familiar voice called out after them as Takeshi appeared behind them.

“You cannot retire!” one of the girls yelled as all three of them came plowing into Yuuri.

“He’ll have to if you go breaking him!” Takeshi laughed as he approached them.

“You have to beat Viktor!”

“Yeah, steal his gold medal!”

“Prove to the world that Japan produces the best figure skaters in the world. Russia has nothing on us!”

Yuuri smiled politely as the girls proudly spouted their figure skating centered patriotism.

“There is a young skater from Hakata that I think has the potential to do pretty well in a few years,” Yuuri said simply. “Viktor will probably be retired by then, but maybe he’ll be able to beat Yuri Plisetsky.”

Yuuri of course didn’t fully believe that—Kenjirou Minami was enthusiastic and youthful and a solid performer, but Yuri on the other hand was a prodigy. 

“Alright, girls, Yuuri was on the way to run an errand, we don’t want to delay him too long,” Yuuko said, making to pry one of the girls off him while Takeshi grabbed the other two.

“But, he’s not here to skate?”

“Nope, not today,” Yuuko informed them.

Yuuri took that as the opportunity to leave, standing up quickly now that he was free of the weight of several small children.

“I’ll see you all later,” Yuuri called as he made his way over to the exit.

“You’ll come have dinner with us this week!” Yuuko called out after him, not phrasing it as a question.

Yuuri turned around in the doorway and smiled and nodded before he left.

*

“Yuuri!” Minako slurred. “What are you still doing here?” she asked.

“I live here?” Yuuri said, confused, as he walked back into Yu-topia to see Minako collapsed at a table with a few empty glasses in front of her. “Is there some kind of event on television tonight?”

Minako had come by for figure skating competitions, or occasionally other sports, and had too many drinks while getting caught up in the competition many a time in Yuuri’s life.

“No, no, no figure skating, although I don’t know if your parents will watch anymore if you aren’t competing.”

“Hm,” Yuuri said, sitting down at the table across from Minako.

“So how long are you going to be stubborn Yuuri?” she asked suddenly.

“What?”

“About this retiring thing, how long are you going to be stubborn about it?”

“I’m not being stubborn about it. Making a choice isn’t being stubborn.”

“If the choice is the wrong one and everyone including yourself knows it, that’s being stubborn,” Minako said matter-of-factly.

Yuuri froze. Ever since he got back to Hasetsu, it seemed everywhere he turned, all he got was thinly veiled disappointment. It hadn’t been like this the first time he’d come back. There was a tiny bit of disappointment, and a bit of pity, sure, that everyone tried fairly hard to hide from him. But apart from some teasing about his weight gain and a few slightly curious glances from his sister, everyone had welcomed him back just fine.

But now, well, it’s not like his family and friends were cold and unwelcoming, but the question that Minako had just asked so bluntly in her drunkenness seemed to hang in the air.

“How does anyone know it’s the wrong choice?” Yuuri asked.

“Because, you have the option to finally achieve everything you’ve been working your entire life for, and instead you’re quitting. Since when is Katsuki Yuuri a quitter?”

“What if I don’t want that anymore?” Yuuri exclaimed defensively, making to stand up from the table.

“Yuuri,” Minako said, reaching forwards and grabbing Yuuri around the back of the neck and pulling him close so they were forehead to forehead. Yuuri could smell the alcohol on her breath. “Are you afraid?”

 _Inevitably_ , Yuuri thought instinctively, but instead all he could said aloud was, “Of what?”

“Of falling from such great heights.”

“What?”

“You don’t have to be. We’ll catch you if you do, Yuuri,” she whispered. “But I don’t think you will.”

“I’m not afraid of failing,” Yuuri said, defensively. “Not of losing.”

“Maybe you’re not afraid of losing at skating, then,” Minako said, finally letting Yuuri go as she hiccupped. “Maybe you’re afraid of failing at something else. What is it you want—if not skating?”

That wasn’t a hard question to answer, although Yuuri wished it was.

He wanted Viktor, of course. But he couldn’t have Viktor.

He couldn't have—

“And why can’t you have what you want?”

“I—Because, things are different now,” Yuuri sputtered.

“Are they really?” Minako asked. “Isn’t that one of the most frustrating things about being a human—that things never really change all that much, no matter how much you want them too? Habits take ages to break, we still love things and people we shouldn’t. Maybe just this once that could be comforting for someone.”

“I landed a quad flip in competition a few competitions after just barely ratifying my first quad. That seems like a pretty big change really quick,” Yuuri tried to argue, but his head was beginning to throb.

“But it wasn’t really for you, I’m sure. Things can surprise other people, but usually only when they weren’t paying enough attention,” Minako said simply. “People are rarely surprised by miracles. Not because miracles aren’t surprising, just because they rarely happen,” she clarified.

“But—” Yuuri argued.

“Have a drink and relax a bit,” Minako said, pushing a beer bottle across the table to him.

Not sure what else to do but eager to have a reason to not have this conversation anymore, Yuuri complied.

*

"So, Viktor Nikiforov..." Minako said, smiling at Yuuri sloppily. 

"What about him?" Yuuri said, slamming his now third empty bottle on the table.

"You still love him, yeah?"

"What makes you think I ever loved him?" Yuuri asked.

"The shrine to him that is your bedroom."

Yuuri balked. 

"How much time have you been spending in my bedroom?"

"Your parents have started letting me crash there sometimes when I drink too much."

"Oh," Yuuri said. "Well the posters are old. He was my idol when I was a child."

And that was the _truth_.

"And what is he now?" Minako asked.

 _What was he now?_ Yuuri thought. 

"I—" Yuuri stammered. "He's silly. Or no, stupid. Or maybe crazy."

"Silly, stupid, and crazy?"

"Yes," Yuuri said. "Those things. And I'm mad at him."

"You're _mad_ at him?”

"Yeah, because he won't leave me alone. Obsessed with me since I did the quad, probably. Even though he shouldn't be."

"Huh?" Minako hiccuped.

Yuuri said nothing though, and instead pulled a new bottle over to him and swirled the liquid around the bottle absentmindedly. 

"Yuuri?" she asked quietly.

"I love him and I can't have him, and that makes me so mad. It used to make me sad, but now I'm angry, that I have to keep losing him," Yuuri whispered as he watching the liquid swish around the bottle.

"What?" Minako asked.

But Yuuri didn't say anything, and instead just lay his head down on the table and closed his eyes. 

*

Yuuri was at Ice Castle and he was skating Stammi Vicino.

It was late at night and the triplets definitely were not around—it was definitely past a six-year old’s bed time.

No one was around, in fact.

Which was just the way Yuuri liked it.

He’d been in Hasetsu for a little over a week, and he’d found that it wasn’t at all like he was expecting it to be.

And that was incredibly frustrating.

Yuuri had imagined peacefully falling into small town life.

Or something.

In retrospect he hadn’t actually envisioned more than about a five-minute montage worth of snippets of the quiet life which in his mind consisted of cooking meals with his mother, sweeping up the inn, and occasional strolls downtown or soaks in the hot springs.

And maybe, maybe he could have managed to make a life out of doing those things on repeat for fifty years.

But then there was the heavy weight of his family and friends disappointment in him that was putting a real wedge in any of those plans.

Hell, the only people who hadn’t expressed their feelings pretty bluntly to him were his parents, and even still he could tell there were things they wanted to say and wished for him.

He could feel it everywhere. It was in the air.

And it was tainting his idyllic small-town life, damnit.

And it was frustrating. It was frustrating.

And so Yuuri had decided to blame Viktor, somewhere along the way these past few days since arriving back in Hasetsu.

The desperate reasoning started like this—

Wishing that if Viktor just didn’t exist in this universe, then maybe no one would care if he quit. Wishing that if Viktor didn’t exist in this universe, then maybe Yuuri wouldn’t have any qualms about skating. But silly, stupid, crazy, beautiful, perfect Viktor did exist, just as he should, just as he had more right than Yuuri to, and he was mocking him.

Even when Yuuri tried to run to a little town on the other side of the world, he still managed to mock Yuuri with his existence.

And instead of mourning the loss of the love of his life, Yuuri found himself being angry at Viktor Nikiforov like a petulant child. It had started like a little seed of frustration, the very day he first arrived back in Hasetsu and things started to feel strange. But then it had only grown and grown, bursting that night he'd gotten drunk with Minako. And now he was just angry at Viktor.

For him being alive and for Yuuri being alive and for them not being able to be together.

And then that angry, exasperated reasoning began to morph into something rawer—

Because the truth was he still wanted Viktor so badly it hurt, but instead of continuing to mourn the Viktor he had lost, he’d somewhere along the way began to focus on this Viktor. Maybe it wasn’t all that hard for him to have accidentally started doing when the second thing anyone asked him about tended to be Viktor Nikiforov. Phichit wanted to know. Yuuko wanted to know. Minako wanted to know.

He was supposed to be mourning the loss of a love for the ages, a once in a lifetime love. That was how he was supposed to be feeling, and he was so, so frustrated that it had not even been a month in this new life and those feelings had run out and transformed into something dumb and frustrating. And now instead he found that he just kind of wanted to punch Viktor Nikiforov in his silly, stupid, crazy beautiful, perfect face.

Maybe he could ask Yuri to do it for him.

Because obviously Yuuri couldn’t. Because he loved the man. Even if not quite this man, it was close enough. Close enough to haunt him but far enough away to be forever out of reach.

So instead he’d asked Yuuko to let him into Ice Castle after hours, way after hours. And he was skating Stammi Vicino.

Because it felt like the only thing he knew how to do anymore.

So much was out of his control apparently, although that should have been expected.

Minako was right, things never really change all that much that quickly. Two years was nothing, certainly not enough time for Yuuri to really be better prepared to live this life anymore than he was the first time.

Certainly not enough time to stop loving the person Viktor Nikiforov had been two years ago.

But in those two years he had had enough time to learn how to do a quad flip. That was something he could control. He had had enough time to learn how to skate Stammi Vicino without downgrading or marking jumps. That was something he could control.

He was going to lose either way. He couldn't have Viktor, but he couldn't seem to let him go.

It was all too out of control, and the path was suddenly seeming more and more inevitable, just like everyone seemed to know that it was. Everyone except him. 

Waking up from dreams that had once felt like nightmares and now just rolling over in bed.

Saying he wanted to quit skating but always going back to the ice.

_"When are you going to stop being stubborn?"_

He just wanted to feel like he had some semblance of control. He wanted to be able to feel like he could make a choice and it was his choice that he was making on purpose.

And so, that’s exactly what he was doing.

Yuuri finished the program and stood panting on the ice.

Then, with a turn of his head, he looked across the rink to where his phone was mounted on the edge of the barrier and winked.

Taking his time, he skated over and picked up the phone. He didn’t bother to even play back the video, he just cropped the beginning and end off of it so it just got the bit of the actual performance.

Then he opened Instagram.

He went into his messages and found the message for Yuri and copied Viktor’s number.

Then he went to compose a message to the number.

 _See you at Worlds_ , he typed out.

Then he attached the video and hit send.


	6. The Underdog Winning is the Romantic Position

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Because while Viktor Nikiforov was known to be a desperate man, perhaps, at least by those who knew him well, those that didn’t know him well, like poor unsuspecting skate fans, probably thought Viktor was cool and calm and collected.
> 
> Or at least they probably imagined he was a grown man who didn’t spend all his free time trying to track down every bit of information on Yuuri Katsuki with all the power of a thousand fan girls.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So we have a POV change! Usually I'm really, really picky about setting a POV or pattern of alternating POV's early in a fic and sticking to it, but this just feels right. I also think it's a nice reward for you, for something lighter after surviving five chapters of angst. We are still moving forward in time though, this isn't like some kind of retelling of the story so far, and Yuuri will probably be back in a few chapters to finish out the story.

* * *

Victor Nikiforov could not figure out how to watch the Japanese Nationals live.

He’d started on the internet. He’d found a helpful article that had linked him to three different Japanese websites that were blocked in Russia. He’d then spent several hours researching and setting up several different VPN services, but none of them seemed to wipe out the country block for most of the websites. The one website he could get through to he was immediately faced with a pay wall which he could only get past with a subscription to a Japanese cable provider.

And apparently you had to own a television in Japan to have one of those.

So then he’d called a Russian cable company, every cable company in fact, to see if there was some way he could add some kind of package of channels that might play it on an actual television. There were thousands of television channels, one had to be playing it, right? He’d even told them cost wasn’t an issue.

But they’d told him that they didn’t have anything available that was what he was looking for.

They did though helpfully give him a list of the six different channels that would be airing the _Russian_ Figure Skating Championships.

So then back he went to the internet, trying to find maybe some obscure international sport streaming subscription service. There were plenty of those, but mostly for football, occasionally hockey or basketball—mostly out of the UK or US or Canada.

None for Japanese figure skating.

So he looked harder, hoping maybe a less-than-legal video streaming site would put up a feed. Or that maybe a fan somewhere would be livestreaming a video of their Japanese television airing the competition, anything.

But if either of those things existed, he definitely couldn’t find them.

And it drove him mad.

He was Viktor fucking Nikiforov, shouldn’t he have some kind of connection? If anyone should be able to watch the Japanese Figure Skating Championships remotely, it should be him.

Not that he was entitled, or anything. Most of the time, anyway.

And he did even consider asking someone— tracking down some poor unsuspecting Japanese skating fan and messaging them asking to livestream Yuuri’s performance on Instagram or something. He probably could find someone that would, for him. But he just couldn’t bring himself to. Because while Viktor Nikiforov was known to be a desperate man, perhaps, at least by those who knew him well, those that didn’t know him well, like poor unsuspecting skate fans, probably thought Viktor was cool and calm and collected.

Or at least they probably imagined he was a grown man who didn’t spend all his free time trying to track down every bit of information on Yuuri Katsuki with all the power of a thousand fan girls.

Which, all together, came to mean that Viktor would have to wait to see Yuuri’s Nationals performance.

And yes, he did know that someone in Japan would post videos of Yuuri’s performance pretty shortly after it happened.

But Viktor didn’t want to watch a three-minute YouTube clip. He wanted the drama of a commentator’s speculation, even if he couldn’t understand it. He wanted to watch the world react to whatever surprise Yuuri had cooked up in real time. He wanted to watch Yuuri wait in the kiss and cry and see his face as the scores were announced.

Viktor wanted it so badly he had almost considered flying to Japan himself, but of course, that wouldn’t work—this year Russian nationals were happening the same weekend as Japanese Nationals.

And also, he was a cool and calm and collected grown ass man. Who did not stalk his competitors. No matter how interesting they were.

And Viktor wasn’t even just a man, relatively speaking. He was the multi-time World men’s singles skating champion.

Which was why out of anyone he should be able to watch the god damn Japanese National Championships, dammit!

But, alas, he was going in circles.

But he still wanted to see it so, so badly none the less.

A part of Viktor wondered if the Russian Championship was not the same weekend if he was just being hyperbolic in his desperation or if he would have actually had the balls to up and fly to Japan just to go see it, or at least watch it live from a hotel room if the being-a-stalker thing was a concern. He wondered if that it _had_ been anything else in the world in his way, maybe he _would_ have been ridiculous enough to skip it and everything to go.

But the theoretical didn’t matter, because it was Russian Nationals and if he wanted to see Yuuri again at the World Championship, he too really ought to compete at his nationals.

So, he was in Moscow, sitting in his hotel room, googling “ _Watch Japanese Figure Skating Championship online”_ one last time in case something new just happened to have popped up recently. He sighed and closed the tab when all the links that came up oh so annoyingly reported the exactly last time he’d visited them.

It was early afternoon local time, meaning early evening Japanese time, and he had to go give his own short program performance in only a few hours, but Viktor, even if he couldn’t physically watch the competition, was still going to be on standby for news as his competitor’s short program ramped up in Japan.

Even Yakov’s full fury could not stop him from sitting here on his ass in his hotel room when he probably should be off doing some stretching and conditioning in an empty hotel conference room or downing some vile concoction of vitamins, minerals, protein, and electrolytes.

He had twitter open on his laptop, in several different tabs—one searching “#KatsukiYuuri,” one for “#YuuriKatsuki,” one for “#かつき ゆうり,” one for “#勝生 勇利,” and one for “Japanese Figure Skating Championships.” He also had a Google News alert set for that last one as well. And he had all the pages set to automatically be translated if there was anything there in a language he couldn’t read.

And then on his phone he had Instagram open, ready to quickly flip back and forth between a couple different Japanese ice-skating fan blogs that seemed to post primarily in English. He was hoping it would be on Instagram where he might be able to find the first low quality stills, or shaky snippets of Yuuri’s performance.

Then on a tablet, which he’d actually gone out and bought specifically for this occasion (once he realized two screens would not be enough for his solo not-viewing party) Viktor had the video that Yuuri had sent him a couple of days ago playing on loop.

That was dangerous though, having that video up, because Viktor had a hard time looking away every time he so much as glanced at it.

Like right now.

Viktor tore his eyes away right as Yuuri landed his quad flip effortlessly and turned back to twitter, scrolling through a Yuuri-centered fan account that was live tweeting the nationals, apparently watching them in person.

**_courageous-winner_ **

_EEEEP YUURI I SEE HIM MY BABY_

The next tweet had a photograph, and if Viktor opened the picture and zoomed in he could just make out Yuuri walking into the arena, but the photo was too far away for Viktor to make out the features of the other man’s face.

Which was annoying. If he was watching it on live television, there probably would have been some high-definition camera so close and clear it could capture the glisten of sweat dripping out of his pores.

**_courageous-winner_ **

_Wait! I don’t see his coach! Is he alone? Is that allowed?_

Viktor froze as he read the tweet. That was… interesting news, and it left Viktor’s mind spiraling with questions.

To answer the fans question, it was probably _allowed_ , Viktor didn’t know about the Japanese Federation’s rules for sure, but Yuuri probably did, and Viktor hoped he hadn’t made a show of actually showing up to compete, only to get himself disqualified. Hopefully. But competing without a coach wasn’t exactly advised. And no one, at least not a skater at his and Yuuri’s level anyway, ever really did it.

Had Yuuri decided to compete so late that Celestino hadn’t had time to fly out? Had he dropped the man as his coach and hadn’t had time to find a new one? Surely there were people lined up who would be willing to take on the job.

**_courageous-winner_ **

_Oh, he has a woman with him! I don’t know who she is, the commentators aren’t talking about it yet._

**_courageous-winner_ **

_Maybe they’ll say something when Yuuri is up._

**_courageous-winner_ **

_Ugh, of course Yuuri is in the last group. I’m going to die waiting._

Viktor sighed, also realizing just how much more time he had before Yuuri competed.

He dropped his phone and flopped back on his bed, picking back up the tablet to watch Yuuri drop into an Ina Bauer and glide across the screen.

If the fan thought she was going to die just waiting out the other competitors, Viktor imagined there must be a fate worse than death in store for him.

*

Yuuri Katsuki did not change his short program from the last time he’d performed it at the Grand Prix Final or his placements before that.

He didn’t upgrade a single element, it was skated exactly it was choreographed. He didn’t even do a single quad— _not one_. Viktor had held his breath through the entire performance waiting for one, imagining him pushing it to the bitter end of the program. Waiting for him to pull out a quad flip as the very last element of his program, perhaps. But it never came.

The program was simple—not unchallenging, but it didn’t push any boundaries, didn’t seem to be looking to max out a score.

And Viktor was surprised. Somehow, he was surprised. No, of course he was surprised.

Yuuri had known, hadn’t he, the world was waiting for him to give the performance of a lifetime? He’d known that everyone, maybe even especially Viktor Nikiforov, was waiting for him to blow his competitors out of the water by tens of points. They were all waiting for him to break a world record that wouldn’t even be counted because National Championships were not ISU competitions, just because he could.

The most surprising thing he could do then in the face of those expectations would be to stick to his original program from the season, especially when everyone was suddenly expecting the world.

But as Viktor replayed the YouTube clip of Yuuri’s performance for the ninth time, still unable to look away, he realized that he had no right to be so surprised.

Because this short program, exactly as it was, had gotten Yuuri silver at both Skate America and the NHK Trophy. It had earned him a spot in the Grand Prix Final.

And because only one other Japanese skater right now even had a quad they used regularly in competition, and they often popped it, and their performance scores were nothing compared to Yuuri’s.

Because Yuuri had already won his nationals the last two years without quads, why on earth would he need them now? Particularly when there was a toe loop in his free skate for the first time this year.

Because even without the quads, Yuuri was in first place after the short program.

But his score, while much higher than it had been after his Grand Prix short program, was well below the 100-point plus score that Viktor now knew Yuuri could probably deliver, and it was even further below Viktor’s personal best that season now that he himself regularly broke the 100-point barrier.

But then it hit Viktor—of course Yuuri wasn’t showing off this time. Of course Yuuri was fine to skate his original program cleanly.

Because, it was dawning on Viktor suddenly, perhaps Yuuri Katsuki was not a show off.

It made sense.

Well, it didn’t—Yuuri had performed _his_ quad flip and broken _his_ record at the Grand Prix Final. It was an incredibly dramatic thing to do. And then he had gone on to marathon quads in his exhibition, merely because he could, presumably.

It was the most dramatic thing to ever happen in figure skating history, probably, save for the Tonya Harding thing, but honestly Viktor wasn’t even sure. That incident was dramatic like a spy movie.

What Yuuri had done was dramatic like a soap opera.

But then, Yuuri had also tried to retire.

Which was dramatic, but also kind of the exact opposite thing than what someone who craved the spotlight in the long term would do.

And then Yuuri also could have posted that video performance of Viktor’s Aria to the internet.

But he hadn’t. He’d sent it straight to Viktor.

Performing a competitors program and skating it nearly flawlessly and sending it to that competitor was dramatic as hell. But still, no one but Viktor even knew that he had done it.

Was something attention seekingly dramatic if only one other person even knew it had happened?

But then, maybe, just maybe, Yuuri Katsuki wasn’t a drama queen show off. No, of course Yuuri Katsuki wasn’t a drama queen show off.

But why wasn’t he, dammit? Viktor was, at least a little, inevitably. And so was Chris and Georgi, definitely, as well as a dozen other younger skaters he’d met and whose careers he had observed. Figure skating after all was about performance. Performance was about drama.

And Yuuri was a performer, as much, if not maybe even more than Viktor if his performance scores were anything to go by.

But apparently even more that Yuuri was a performer, Yuuri was an enigma. But god did Viktor was to figure him out.

He was his first real rival probably since Viktor’s early junior career before he’d broken away from the pack so starkly. And Viktor just, well, he had no clue what was going on. And Yuuri’s performance today did not clarify anything.

“Viktor, for the love of god, if you are not out of this room in two minutes with your bag packed—I’ll—I’ll—” Yakov shouted from outside the door of Viktor’s hotel room, pounding on the door. He’d been doing that for about five minutes now (and of course he’d called and texted Viktor a dozen times before that—before Viktor put his phone on Do Not Disturb).

With a sigh, Viktor shut his laptop and rolled off of his bed, crumpling onto the floor.

If he wanted to actually have a shot at seeing Yuuri at worlds, he really was going to have to go compete.

“Hold on, hold on,” Viktor shouted, dragging himself up to  go grab his costume and skates.

*

It was the middle of the night when something occurred to him.

Viktor should have of course be asleep, resting for the free skate tomorrow.

He was in first place after the short program, but if Viktor had learned anything in the past few weeks, it’s that he can most definitely not assume his title is safe.

So he _should_ be making sure he was well rested and ready to deliver a strong performance tomorrow.

But he wasn’t.

Instead, he was sitting bolt upright in bed after hours of restless sleep and frantically reaching for his phone on the night stand, desperate to send a text.  

 _Hey, you’re a Yuuri Katsuki super fan, right? Have you been watching the Japanese Nationals?_ Viktor sent the text to Yuri casually.

Yuri does not respond, seemingly inevitably.

If not because it was 3:00 AM, because Yuri had pretty much stopped responding to him across the board over a week ago after he’d ceaselessly harassed him for Yuuri’s number.

(The younger skater though had insisted he didn’t have it and that he didn’t know or like Yuuri.)

(Somehow though, Yuuri had gotten Viktor’s number none the less, and Viktor knew Yuri was involved.)

And so Viktor knew that if anyone in the world was going to give any insight into Yuuri’s free skate performance or would maybe know how to watch the damn thing live from Russia, it would be Yuri.

And maybe, just maybe, Viktor will have left the poor teenager alone for long enough for him to deign to text him back in the morning.

Finally feeling the slightest sense of peace perhaps for the first time since the upset at the Grand Prix Final, Viktor went back to sleep.

*

 _I don’t know why you think I’d give a fuck about the Japanese National Championships_ , the text read. _And I’m not that idiots fan._

Viktor, though, just smiled.

 _Oh, well, can you at least let me know where you aren’t going to be watching the free program this afternoon?_ Viktor responded.

“Oy, what is that face, Nikiforov?” Georgi asked.

Viktor looked up from his phone at his rink mate, who he’d been eating lunch with, his brow furrowing and lips pursing to wipe away the grin.

“What face?” he asked.

“You looked like a bit like how imagine your face would look if you were texting some kind of school boy crush of yours,” Georgi said. “Or how I believe you might call it, _in love_ , as if you could possibly love as many things and people as you’ve claimed to.”

Viktor did have a habit of, perhaps, speaking hyperbolically.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. “And I’m texting Yura, so _definitely_ not,” he grimaced.

“I don’t think anyone has smiled while talking to Yuri in that kids entire life,” Georgi said. “What, are you celebrating a victory out maneuvering an attempt of his to extort you or something?”

“Oh, don’t be cruel, he’s just a child,” Viktor scolded. “And I guess something like that. He hasn’t responded to any of my texts in a while, so when I texted him last night I wasn’t sure he’d deign to respond to me.”

Georgi just gave him a skeptical look.

“He knows Yuuri Katsuki and the Japanese Nationals are this weekend, I just was hoping I might be able to coax some details on that out of him,” Viktor elaborated.

“Oh,” was all Georgi said, his face shifting into a smirk. “I see.”

“What?” Viktor asked.

“Nothing,” Georgi said, stabbing into the fish that he’d been eating for lunch with one hand and waving dismissively with the other. “Text away.”

Viktor decided to let it drop in favor of staring at his phone, awaiting Yuri’s response.

*

Yuri had sent Viktor a link.

He provided absolutely no commentary, but sent a link none the less.

The link took Viktor to a video, or no, some kind of video feed, that currently was not playing anything. And the entire website was in Japanese and Viktor couldn’t get the page to translate, so he had no idea what any of it said.

For all he knew, little Yuri had sent him a link to Japanese porn as a sort of cruel joke.

But for some reason, Viktor trusted, and hoped, and opened up the website on his laptop in one of the many tabs and waited.

The men’s singles free program was set to start at quarter to seven o’clock Japanese Standard Time, so Viktor still had another few minutes.

But then, finally at 12:47 Moscow Standard time (the two lagging minutes had been devastating), the feed started to play, the black empty screen opening up on the image of an ice rink, skaters zipping along the ice in their warm up.

 _Thank you Yura <3_, Viktor sent.

 _Don’t be gross, old man_ , Yuri responded quickly. _I just want to see if he’ll fall on his ass._

_Sure ;)_

_When you get back to St. Petersburg, I’m going to punch you._

But Yuri could punch Viktor as hard and as many times as he wanted, if it meant Viktor got to watch Yuuri’s free skate live.

*

_Go Figure • Your Premiere Source for Figure Skating News_

**Yuuri Katsuki takes third consecutive Japanese National Championship**

Dec 28, 2014

Japanese Men’s singles skater Yuuri Katsuki has taken gold at this years Japanese Figure Skating Championships this weekend, marking his third consecutive title. The win comes as a slight surprise after Katsuki announced at the Grand Prix Finals in Sochi, Russia, earlier this month that he planned to retire mid-season following the competition.

Katsuki, though, has certainly shaken up the sport of figure skating this past month, and has quickly managed to set a precedent for the figure skating community and fans that nothing should be expected of the skater. After a poor short program performance at the Grand Prix Final, Katsuki shocked the world by delivering a word record breaking free skate performance. The performances score blew both Katsuki’s previous personal best and reigning world champion Viktor Nikiforov of Russias’s world record for the free skate program out of the water. The score of 203.8 also surpassed the 200-point threshold that was expected to be surpassed by Nikiforov this season.

After announcing retirement though and dropping his coach, Celestino Cialdini, who he had been training with in Detroit in the US for the past five years, to return to his hometown of Hasetsu in Japan, Katsuki’s future in figure skating became unclear. His arrival at the Japanese Championships at all came as a surprise for many, who were waiting for the skater to formally withdraw. When asked about his motivations to keep competing, Katsuki said that he, “Realized he had more to give.”

However, what exactly that “more” is has yet to be seen, as his performance at the Japanese Nationals, while strong enough for the win, did not deviate at all from his programs as performed at the beginning of the season. Many expected Katsuki to premiere an entirely new or at least modified short program that would be more in line with his skill as demonstrated in the free skate at the Grand Prix Final, as well as for him to give a repeat performance of that very free skate.

Some fans have expressed disappointment, perceiving the performance as a slight to fans and the sport. Others though have reasoned that the grueling record-breaking free program is not only incredibly challenging, but also inherently dangerous, so it would make sense for the skater to dial back his performance at a relatively lower stakes competition. The three weeks between the Grand Prix Final and the National Championship does also not leave room to develop an entirely new short program to match his more challenging free skate.

And moving forward from this competition, Katsuki’s figure skating career still remains unclear and up for much speculation. Katsuki has announced that he will now be training in his home town for the rest of the season with two family friends, a local dance instructor Minako Okukawa and local ice rink manager Yuuko Nishigori, acting as co-coaches. He had also announced plans to compete at Four Continents and the World Championship, both of which he qualifies for with his boost in world standing after the Grand Prix and his victory at nationals. When asked about his plans beyond the end of the season, though, Katsuki only shrugged.

*

Viktor stared down at that initial text Yuuri had sent to him about a week ago now.

 _See you at Worlds_ and the video attached.

It wasn’t the start of a conversation, exactly. It was more of a throw down. The only response needed was for Viktor to prepare to give his all at the World Championships.

But that was still months away.

And Viktor didn’t know if he could idly wait by until the end of March to be able to speak to Yuuri again and get more personal insights into whatever was going on with the other skater.

But Viktor knew he couldn’t just text back something casual. He thought about it, over the past week he’d typed out and erased dozens of messages.

_Looking forward to it._

_Stop messing around with my program and work on your own. You’re going to need it!_

_:D Wow Yuuri I didn’t know you were such a big fan!_

_Can I post this on the internet?_

_You skate it better than I do :o_

_Good luck at your nationals!_

_Hey Yuuri, do you want to like, maybe chat sometime?_

_What was with your programs at Nationals? You’re not going to beat me skating like that!_

_You did beautifully at your nationals Yuuri, can’t wait to skate on the same ice as you again soon!_

_Hey Yuuri, did you see me skate at nationals? I was thinking of you!_

_(And how I’m going to crush you at Worlds!)_

_(Just kidding hahahaha you’re going to beat me what am I even fooling myself? I am not worthy.)_

But Viktor could of course not send any of those texts.

There honestly seemed to be only one obvious response.

So after both Viktor and Yuuri had won their respective nationals, Viktor had returned to St. Petersburg to get back to training.

But instead of training his programs, Viktor found himself at the ice rink at four in the morning, every morning, trying to skate Yuuri’s free skate—the version of it he had done at the Grand Prix Final.

Except it was hard?

Viktor didn’t know what was worse (or better?), that Yuuri had been practicing Viktor’s free skate program all season in addition to his own, or that Yuuri was such a good skater that he could just casually flawlessly mimic other skaters programs without a lot of effort.

But Viktor had absolutely no idea what to make of either option.

But as Viktor tried to learn and polish Yuuri’s program, it became apparent that it must have been the former. That Yuuri must have spent weeks or even months working on the Aria. Because Viktor was certainly going to have to spend at least that much time on Yuuri’s.

Which was all the more frustrating, because at this rate, Viktor would be lucky to respond after the European Championships at the end of the month.  

If he was willing to downgrade the quad flip at the end of the program to a triple, and maybe replace another jump earlier in the program with the quad, maybe Viktor would have been able to have a decent rendition of the program down within a few weeks. Not as good as Yuuri could skate it, but close enough to maybe make the point.

But the thing was, while Viktor had not fallen on his quad flip in competition in years, and even very rarely in practices, Viktor could not successfully execute the quad that late in the program. And it could take the rest of the seasons worth of intense cross training to build up the stamina to be able to.

But Viktor was going to do it. He was going to do it, dammit!

At least that’s what he told himself as he skated his way through Yuuri’s program yet again, his overall performance steadily getting cleaner and readied to throw himself into the quad flip, even though his entire body felt like it was on fire and every fiber of his being told him it was too much.

He was so exhausted that he wasn’t even sure he got the rotations in before his foot slid out from under him and he went rolling across the ice.

“What on earth are you doing, idiot?” someone shouted as Viktor lay sprawled out on the ice, panting.

A few minutes later Yuri Plisetsky was looking down at him.

Viktor looked back at the young skater.

“You aren’t supposed to wear street shoes on the ice,” Viktor chided as he caught sight of Yuri’s feet, although it was barely more than a murmur and it lacked the amusement his scolding of Yuri usually contained.

“I was worried you died or something, collapsed on the ice and unmoving,” Yuri spat back. “Idiot, what are you doing here so early training by yourself?”

Viktor sighed, but smiled now.

“Not dead, not yet anyway,” he said, pushing himself up from the ice.

“Were you skating Katsuki’s program?” Yuri barked.

“Yes,” Viktor admitted.

“Why the fuck are you doing that? If you’re going to beat that idiot at Worlds, shouldn’t you be working on _your_ programs?”

Viktor said nothing and instead skated over to the edge of the rink to grab his phone from where he’d left it sitting on the barrier.

He opened the video of Yuuri skating his Aria and handed the phone to Yuri.

“What the fuck is this?” Yuri asked.

“Just press play,”

Yuri scowled but did none the less.

Then he was quiet until the video ended.

Then there was a few more long moments of silence.

“Well duh he can pick up your program more easily than you can his, your program is way easier than the one Katsuki did at the Grand Prix. If you calculate out the base scores for both of your programs, his is like over fifteen points higher. Plus they probably underscored him by at least ten points too.”

“What?” Viktor said, raising his eyebrows.

“If I’m going to beat both of you next year, I need to strategize early.”

Viktor laughed at this, and Yuri scowled.

“That is if Yuuri and I even compete next year,” Viktor sighed.

The look of surprise on Yuri’s face was priceless.

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

Viktor sat down on the bench along the edge of the rink and sighed.

“I don’t know, I got really drunk at the banquet and it’s all a bit fuzzy, but before that I made a bet with him, that if he won Worlds he could retire. We called it off, I think, but then I’m not sure with this video. But if anything, it makes it seem like he’ll probably retire soon either way. And I think if he retires, I might too.”

Yuri’s face scrunched up into something akin to fury. Viktor could imagine steam coming out of his ears like in some old cartoon.

“Well then you better fucking win the World Championship this year, so I can beat both your asses next year!” he shouted.

“I’m trying,” Viktor shrugged. “But it’s not looking good,” Viktor said, gesturing to his phone that was still in Yuri’s hand.

This time, Yuri audibly growled and threw Viktor’s phone down on the ice.

“Then I’ll help you!”

Viktor was a little taken aback.

“Oh?” he said. “You’ll help me?”

“You’re going to need to do a lot more training than fall on your ass repeatedly if you want to be as good as Katsuki, and I know for sure you don’t plan on telling Yakov about this stunt of trying to one up Katsuki with his own program, so I’ll help.”

“So you want to _coach_ me?” Viktor asked skeptically, looking at the fourteen-year-old.

“I want to tell you when you’re being an idiot and doing everything wrong and you can’t see it yourself.”

“So, you want to coach me,” Viktor repeated, a statement this time.

“Do you want my help or not?”

Viktor smiled, the expression spreading slowly across his face as he looked down at the younger skater.

“Fine,” he said, full on grinning now as if he had planned this and had lured Yuri into some kind of trap. “Be here tomorrow morning at 4:00 in the morning and try to be discrete about it.”

Viktor wondered for a moment if Yuuri would argue. But he didn’t.

“Fine, now get off the ice so I can start warming up before all the other idiots get here,” Yuri spat.

Viktor stepped aside, bowing slightly and holding his arm out gesturing to the ice.

“Go right ahead,” he said. “But you are going to need to put on your skates, unless you’re planning on taking up curling.”


	7. The Future Belongs to Those Who Truly Believe in the Beauty of their Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Enough with this trying to learn Katsuki’s program to own him shit, you could own him right now if you wanted to, you’re Viktor fucking Nikiforov!”_

“Keep going, loser, one more mile!” Yuri shouted.

Viktor sped up on the elliptical.

“Talk to me, Nikiforov!”

“Agh!” Viktor groaned, taking a gasping breath.

“If you can’t talk to me, you’re working too hard! You shouldn’t be so exhausted, old man!”

Viktor had known, in asking Yuri to help him train, he was giving the teenager far too much power. But in this moment, he realized Yuri was enjoying it way too much.

Viktor ground to a halt, his legs swinging out on the elliptical under him.

“The Aria,” he panted, doubling over as he stumbled off the machine, “Has a quad toe right about where Yuri’s program has a quad flip. Maybe instead of trying to skate Yuuri’s program, we can just—” Viktor took another gasping breath, “Try upping my program,” gasping breath, “And start there.”

“Yuuri’s entire program is more difficult than your stupid Aria, moron. It would be a step in the right direction, maybe, but it’s not just the quad flip. You know this, stop bartering,” Yuri spat. “Or are you ready to give up already?”

“No!” Viktor cried. “It’s just this clearly isn’t working,” he said as he ungracefully dropped into a squat before rocking backwards to collapse flat on his ass, unceremoniously sitting collpased on the ground, wiping at his sweat coated forehead.

They’d been cross training for the past week trying to up Viktor’s stamina, and Viktor hated it. He hated cardio. And it’s not that he hadn’t been running before. But he wasn’t a hamster, god damnit! He hated running in place for tens of minutes if not hours! Viktor was an elite athlete, he had a fairly respectable mile time, could take a nice leisurely couple mile jog without much effort. But Yuri had seemed to decide that Viktor needed to start training for a fucking marathon. Or the tour de France, maybe, because Viktor was already limited to bikes and ellipticals to try and minimize impact on his knees. If he could run outside with Makka, maybe that would be one thing. But this—

Viktor despised this.

“Fine, how about we forget the quad, and work on something else in Yuuri’s program that you are complete shit at,” Yuri said.

Thank god.

“That sounds great,” Viktor sighed with relief. “But I thought most of the program was coming along pretty well, even without your help,” Viktor said, sticking his nose up in the air a bit in a slightly haughty unconscious gesture.

“And that is where you are an idiot. Sure, you’ve memorized it, and can execute the individual elements, but if you think you have one-tenth of the musicality as Yuuri Katsuki, you’re beyond help.”

_Oh._

_Of course._

_Right._

Viktor ducked his head meekly.

“One-tenth is a bit dramatic, maybe,” he defended quietly. “I am the five-time Grand Prix and four-time World Champion. My performance scores aren’t in the gutter.”

“No, but they aren’t as good as Yuuri’s were at the Grand Prix clearly,” Yuri said, staring at Viktor with and eyebrow raised.

For a moment, Viktor just stared back, but soon enough he deflated.

“Fine,” he conceded. “What did you have in mind?”

*

“I have taken ballet before,” Viktor said as he and Yuri stood in an empty studio, looking at each other in the mirrors. “You aren’t the first skater Lilia has trained,” he pointed out.

“Yeah, but you never listened to a single thing she said, and she finally gave up once you made your senior debut. You haven’t taken a real class in a decade.”

“Yes, well, that decision didn’t previously seem particularly detrimental. I did just fine.”

At this Yuri growled.

“Could you stop this, you’re almost making me feel sorry for Yakov!” he shouted.

“What?”

“You think you know best about everything! Just because you’ve won some stupid medals. Just because you’ve done well, doesn’t mean you can’t do better!” Yuri shouted. “It’s this attitude that made it possible for that idiot Katsuki to steal away your record! And then, just you wait for when I get my chance!”

“You’re lecturing me about arrogance while announcing that you’re going to break records your senior debut?” Viktor raised an eyebrow.

“I work hard enough to be arrogant!” Yuri proclaimed, “And maybe you did once, but apparently, you’ve been coasting.”

_Coasting._

Yuri Plisetsky, who hadn’t even made his senior debut yet was accusing him, Living Legend Viktor Nikiforov of _coasting_?

Viktor could almost have laughed, if it weren’t for the fact that suddenly it seemed incredibly possible that could have in fact been the case.

Viktor’s face faltered. 

“Now look here, I have most certainly not been coasting!” Viktor stated sharply. “It’s just, nothing I did was surprising anymore anyway. Even when I should have broken that record, it was anticipated. Everyone expects the best out of me, and I have always delivered!”

Yuri just crossed his arms over his chest. Viktor swore there was some kind of glint in his eye, and Viktor suddenly felt like an animal caught in a trap.

“So, what, the last surprise you could think of was to let yourself be usurped?” Yuri drawled, clearly imitating boredom, but with a slight smirk tugging at his mouth.

“What?” Viktor said, dumbfounded.

“You’ve always said, ‘Do the opposite of what everyone expects of you,’ or some bullshit like that, right?” Yuri said, walking in a slow circle around Viktor that had Viktor spinning like Makka trying to chase her tail. “So, when everyone expects you to win, what do you do?”

Viktor’s eyes widened.

“You lose,” he murmured to himself, aghast. “But—I wasn’t—”

“Of course you weren’t _trying_ to,” Yuri rolled his eyes. “But you wanted someone to beat you, admit it. You wanted a rival. It was just supposed to have been _me._ Fucking Katsuki!”

Viktor didn’t say anything.

He hadn’t, not in years, been trying harder to really distance himself from the pack. He’d still been only heading upwards, of course, but the incline was mild. But he’d told himself that pushing himself any further was impossible—that it would only lead to burnout or injury. Yakov had agreed. No one had ever questioned it.

But then, maybe, secretly and mostly subconsciously, he had wanted someone to catch up to him. He hadn’t wanted his competitors to just be chasing him from miles behind. He had always wanted some real competition. But while Viktor wasn’t entirely undefeated in the last five years of his career, he was close enough. One or two silver medals, beaten out by Chris or Georgi or other skaters now retired here or there at less important competitions when he was coming off minor injuries and would downgrade a few jumps, but otherwise Viktor nearly swept every season.

But it had gotten so boring. He couldn’t surprise people anymore. And no one else ever surprised him or anyone else either.

Until Yuuri.

And the thing was, Viktor probably could have passed 200-points for the free skate last season, if he’d really wanted to. Maybe even the season before. He hadn’t added any new quads to his roster in three years, so there wasn’t really a reason why technically he couldn’t have made a more difficult program earlier.

But he _had_ wanted to draw it out. The 100-point short, 200-point free, and 300-point combined records were the last big milestones he expected to be able to surpass in his career. And everyone expected him to break them, so the only surprise he had to give was not if but when. So he’d been teasing, carefully trying to inch his way closer and closer, coming close but just off several times, building up anticipation.

And that’s when Viktor knew that Yuri was, rather painfully, right. Yuuri didn’t steal the record out from under Viktor. Viktor had been dangling it out there, leaving space for anyone with the talent and the courage to come and claim it.

“Hey, old man, stop sulking and pay attention,” Yuri barked, pulling back Viktor’s attention. “You want to copy Katsuki? Copy this.” Viktor noticed that Yuri was holding out his phone.

Slowly, Viktor reached out and took the phone and found that it was a video of Yuuri dancing.

“Where is this from?” Viktor asked with a gasp as his eyes were immediately magnetized to Yuuri as he leaped across the screen.

“His old rinkmate, the Thai skater, used to post videos of him training sometimes,” Yuri shrugged. “Now, watch it a second time, and then dance for me, monkey, dance.”

Viktor didn’t tear his eyes off of Yuuri as he set the video to play again, but he did groan.

Yes, Viktor had made a horrible mistake in asking for Yuri’s help.

*

 _You know Yuuri, right?_ Viktor texted late one night.

He was lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling, Makkachin curled into his side, wishing for something he couldn’t even quite articulate, but he knew it had to do with Yuuri.

But since he still couldn’t talk to Yuuri about it, because he still couldn’t skate Yuuri’s program and therefore respond to his text, Viktor was going for his second (or well, maybe more like tenth, but really his only) best option.

He had no idea where in the world the other man was, but he could only hope he was awake.

Viktor lay his phone down on his chest, his arms bent, and hands folded around it like a prayer, and waited for a reply.

When the phone vibrated a few painful minutes later, Viktor moved so quickly to check it that Makkachin leapt up, startled and began to nose him in the face with concern.

“Sh, Makka, it’s alright,” Viktor soothed, “Lay down, puppy.”

Makkachin looked at him skeptically, but span in a circle before laying back down beside him.

Viktor turned his attention back to the matter at hand.

 _We competed together in juniors_ , Viktor sighed with relief as he read the response. _What of it?_

 _I was just wondering, is all,_ Viktor sent back.

The response came more quickly this time—

_Mmmmhmmmmm…_

What was _that_ supposed to mean?

_Can I call you?_

He didn’t wait for a response before hitting the call button, and a few seconds later, Chris picked up.

“Hey, Chris,” Viktor greeted.

“ _Mhm_ ,” Chris responded, expectantly.

“What?”

“ _Mmhmm_ ,” Chris repeated, drawing it out.

“Why do you keep making that noise?”

“ _Go ahead_ ,” Chris said. “ _I’ve honestly been expecting this_.”

“Expecting what, how could you possibly know—”

“ _Mmhmm_ ,” Chris interrupted, loudly this time.

“Okay, fine. I just—Yuuri.”

“ _Mhm_ ,” Chris said, yet again, but just a hint a satisfaction in there this time, somehow.

“I think he’s going to win at Worlds this year,” Viktor said softly. “I can’t figure out how to beat him.”

There was a long pause.

“ _Hm_ ,” was all Chris finally said when he did speak.

“What?” Viktor said suspiciously.

“ _Well, what does it matter if Yuuri wins?”_ Chris asked. “ _Particularly if he deserves it?”_

 _What does it matter? What does it matter?!_ Viktor thought in exasperation _,_ but then he remembered that Chris did not know the stakes.

“I—we made a bet,” Viktor admitted by means of explanation, “That if he wins the world championship he can retire.”

There was another long pause, this time so long that Viktor for a moment thought the line went dead.

“ _Oh_ ,” Chris said finally.  “ _And you—you don’t want him to retire_.”

It wasn’t a question, but still Viktor found himself shaking his head.

“No, I can’t—if he retires, I’m going to as well.”

“ _What? That’s ridiculous_ ,” Chris says, but Viktor still doesn’t see how.

“But there is something else,” Viktor said softly, ignoring Chris’s protest.

“ _What?”_

“I—do you remember when Yuuri took me back to my room after I got drunk at the banquet?” Viktor asks.

“ _Yes, and you’re welcome by the way_.”

“What?” Viktor asked quickly, not expecting that response or entirely sure what it meant.

“ _He tried to make me take care of you. I refused, knowing he’d eventually step up_.”

“What, why?”

“ _Because, it was obvious that you guys needed some alone time.”_

“Well, I mean—that’s probably true. But I was so drunk—I can’t remember if it was real or if it was a dream.”

“ _What happened?”_

“Well, there were things that I’m pretty sure happened, like he got me some water and pills, but then I remember him sitting with me when I asked him to—and after that—I think it might be a dream I’m remembering.”

“ _I feel like there is a pretty decent chance that Yuuri could have been kind enough to sit with your drunk ass while you hydrated, he’s not an asshole_ ,” Chris said.

“I—” Viktor said. “You know I took that guy back to my room with me, the night after the final, right?”

“ _No_ ,” Chris said. “ _I didn’t—the one that kept trying to dance with you? Why on earth did you do that?_ ”

“I—” Viktor said, but faltered. “I—I don’t know. But Yuuri came to my room the next morning and caught him in my bed. And it was bad.”

Chris didn’t say anything, so Viktor kept talking.

“He threw up,” Viktor said. “And I—it—” Viktor faltered.

_“Wait, the guy?”_

“No, Yuuri. It was—you should have seen him, the way he looked hunched over on the floor of my bathroom, Chris.”

“ _Oh, mon cher_ ,” Chris murmured.

“It was—” Viktor faltered. _Devastating_ was the word he wanted to say, but for some reason he didn’t feel like he had the right to.

_“No wonder you got so trashed,” Chris said._

Viktor didn’t like excuses. But, yes, his rampant consumption of alcohol that day had had something to do with the events of that morning.

“And I think I might have apologized, after the banquet, but he said it was fine. And he sat with me. And he was so nice even after everything I did to him.”

“ _Viktor, it’s not like you cheated on him or something_ ,” Chris said.

“But it _feels_ like I did,” Viktor said. “You didn’t see him. Here I am, prancing around making bets with him and holding his costume hostage like it’s all a game, going out and getting drunk and picking up strangers, and then Yuuri—Yuuri—”

“ _What?_ ”

“I don’t know!” Viktor cried in exasperation, and Makka startled again, looking up at him. “I don’t know,” he repeated, softly this time. “But then, I must have been dreaming that night, he was so kind to me. Kinder than I deserve.”

_“What do you think you dreamed?”_

“I told him he was beautiful—”

 _“That seems like something drunk you very well might have done, darling,”_ Chris interrupted, but he spoke gently.

“In Russian,” Viktor finished. “I told him he was beautiful in Russian. And he told me that I’m the one that taught him how to be beautiful. And then when he left, he called me Vitya. That feels like something I would have dreamt.”

Chris only made a humming noise and then there was silence between them.

“Chris,” Viktor said quietly in the darkness of his room, “Do you think dreams can come true?”

Chris let out a bark of laughter.

Then after a moment of silence, a sigh.

“ _Why, darling, don’t you go to sleep and find out?”_

_*_

“Goodnight, Vitya,” Yuuri said, making to shut the door on his way out.

“Wait!” Viktor cried this time from where he lay in bed.

Yuuri paused, silhouetted in the doorframe.

“What is it Vitya?” he asked, his voice smooth in a way that made Viktor feel broken.

“Come back and lie with me?” Viktor asked. “Just for a while, please?”

Yuuri sighed, but in a moment the light from the hallway disappeared as the door slid shut, Yuuri stepping back into the room.

Viktor watched him as he walked around the bed and stood at the edge of it, staring down at Viktor.

“Just give me a second,” Yuuri said.

Then he knelt down and took off his shoes.

Which made perfect sense. Can’t get in bed with your shoes on.

But then he took off his jacket.

Then his pants.

“What are you doing?” Viktor asked with a gasp.

“I don’t want to wrinkle my suit,” Yuuri said as he unbuttoned his shirt. “Is this alright?”

“Oh,” Viktor said. “Okay. It’s fine.”

“Scoot over,” Yuuri said, now standing in just his underwear at the edge of the bed.

Viktor moved just slightly left of center and Yuuri turned down the duvet and slid under it.

For a moment, Viktor just lay stiffly in bed, staring up at the ceiling, hyperaware of the dip in the bed next to him that was filled with Yuuri.

“Relax, Vitya,” Yuuri said, reaching out to rub a hand down Viktor’s arm in a way that sent chills up Viktor’s spine.

“I am relaxed,” he said, but his voice, even though it was no more than a whisper, was tellingly high.

Yuuri laughed gently, and it was like bells.

“Roll over,” he instructed. “Face the wall.”

Viktor was frozen.

“Come on,” Yuuri said, shoving at Viktor playfully.

Slowly, Viktor rolled over.

“There you go, lovely,” Yuuri whispered.

Viktor was first aware of how he could feel Yuuri’s breath on the back of his neck.

Then he felt the arm wrap around him.

And then the rise and fall of Yuuri’s chest against his back.

“Better?” Yuuri asked.

Viktor couldn’t have said anything even if he’d just realized the meaning of life or had been given a message by god.

“Mm,” Yuuri said, and Viktor gasped as he felt lips press to his shoulder. “You’re still so tense, Vitya. You’ll never get to sleep like this.”

Yuuri’s hand slid across his stomach and dove under Viktor’s shirt, rubbing skin-to-skin along Viktor’s stomach.

Then a kiss was pressed against the back edge of his jaw.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Yuuri asked.

Viktor made a strangled noise.

“You’ll have to use your words, baby.”

Viktor craned his neck to look back over his shoulder to look at Yuuri. There wasn’t much light in the dark hotel room, but Viktor could make out the glimmer of Yuuri’s eyes, the curve of his cheeks, and oh, his lips.

Yuuri licked them.

“Oh,” Viktor gasped, falling back onto his back and looking up at Yuuri. “Could—” he said, slowly, carefully, as if he was relearning how to speak. He shut his mouth and then opened it a few more times, before he finally got the words out. “Kiss me?” he asked, unsure.

Viktor watched as a smile grew on his face, twisting up the corners of his mouth in slow motion.

“I was hoping you’d ask,” he said.

And then he pressed his lips to Viktor’s.

Viktor groaned involuntarily, and any chance of the kiss being chaste evaporated as Yuuri dove his tongue into Viktor’s open mouth.

And Viktor kissed back.

Oh, did Viktor kiss back.

“Yuuri,” Viktor gasped like a prayer, breaking the kiss. “Yuuri, please,” he pleaded, although for what he didn’t know.

“Do you need more than this?” Yuuri asked.

Viktor let out another strangled groan and Yuuri kissed his neck.

“What about this?” Yuuri asked, and Viktor’s attention was drawn back to the hand on his stomach and how it was suddenly slipping lower and lower. “Can I do this for you?”

It wasn’t English Viktor cried out as Viktor arched his back off the bed, but Yuuri seemed to know what it meant none the less.

*

Viktor woke up panting.

Then there was the devastating moment where he realized it had only been a dream.

But that moment was thankfully cut short as Viktor found himself tracing a hand down his stomach, his hand picking up where dream Yuuri’s had left off, desperate to take care of the need that dream Yuuri hadn’t had a chance to.

Viktor let out a whine that turned into the most embarrassingly pornographic sounding grunt as he came more quickly than he had probably since he was a teenager.

As filthy a noise as it was though, Viktor found himself wishing that Yuuri had been there to hear it.

Then, suddenly, Viktor’s yearning and fantasy and post-orgasmic bliss was shattered as suddenly his apartment filled with the sounds of his apartment buzzer being rang.

And it rang, and rang, and rang.

Viktor stumbled out of bed, hastily wiping himself off on his bed sheets and pulling on some pajama pants as he stumbled to the front door.

He swung it open to find Yuri.

“Where the fuck have you been?” the younger skater shouted. “Were you sleeping?”

“Shh,” Viktor said, ushering the teen into his apartment. “I do have neighbors.”

“Well, they should probably get their lazy asses out of bed too!” Yuuri cried. “It’s 6:30!”

“Is it?” Viktor asked, looking around his apartment until he spotted the microwave clock, which confirmed Yuri’s statement.

Yuri just growled.

“My alarm didn’t go off,” Viktor said. Or, maybe he’d fallen asleep talking to Chris last night and forgot to set it. “Sorry,” he shrugged.

“Sorry?” Yuri said, his voice dangerously low. “I have been waking up at 3:30 in the morning for you for weeks! It’s one thing to take a day off, it’s another for you to get to spend the morning lazing in bed when I am waiting for you at the gym at 4:30!”

Viktor, for whatever reason, found himself smiling.

“Ah, I see,” he said. “Well, take tomorrow off then and I’ll train by myself for a morning to make up for it.”

Yuri growled again.

“Anyway,” Viktor said flippantly, “I think I want to pull out operation QT Final at European’s.”

“You can call your program elements by cutesy code-names all you want, it’s not going to save you or make you any better of a skater, old man,” Yuri grumbled.

“Oh, I’ll have time before Worlds to be a better skater, right now though, I think maybe I could just be a little petty,” Viktor said with a smile.

Yuri just rolled his eyes.

“Whatever, idiot,” he said. “Do whatever the fuck you want. I’m going back to bed until my practice session this afternoon. Let Yakov deal with you for a while.”

“Thank you for waking me up, Yura!” Viktor called as Yuri stalked out of his apartment.

Yuri flipped him off.

*

Another week or so later, and Viktor was in Stockholm for Europeans.

It officially been over a month since he’d received the video from Yuuri, and Viktor still couldn’t do Yuuri’s program justice.

Which was beyond frustrating.

He did, however, at least have a surprise today for Yuuri, for his free skate. Yuuri had done too damn much gauntlet throwing, and Viktor, not to mix metaphors, needed to return the serve.

He knew that now.

Europeans were a week before the Four Continents, and Viktor had no idea what Yuuri had in store, but Viktor had carefully watched for an announcement that Yuuri intended to withdraw, but one never came. Which meant that he intended to compete.

And, in a competition as big as the Four Continents, it meant that if he intended to win, he couldn’t skate his program without any of the modifications like he did at his nationals.

But then, Viktor almost felt like making those kinds of assumptions was too treacherous—because whatever Yuuri did, it was going to be the one thing Viktor hadn’t anticipated.

So Viktor had spent the entire plane ride to Sweden and every free moment trying to come up with every single possible scenario, no matter how ridiculous, in hopes that they would then all be fair game.   Maybe Yuuri would just skate his program without the modifications cleanly and settle for probably anywhere between second and tenth place depending on the rest of the competition this year. Maybe he’d only upgrade a jump or two to seal the deal without much fanfare.

Maybe he’d skate Viktor’s program flawlessly in competition but be disqualified for stealing it. Maybe he’d unveil an entirely new program. Maybe he’d land a quad axel. Maybe he’d just spent four minutes doing quad flip after quad flip.

Maybe he’d just stand out in the middle of the rink, scream “Fuck you Viktor Nikiforov,” and then walk off. Maybe, mid program, he would murder all the judges and then stab himself in the chest. Maybe, he’d hire a body double to skate his program for him. Maybe, he and a man that looked exactly like Viktor would skate a duet, complete with throws. Or maybe he and the Viktor doppelganger would strip each other on the ice and then fuck. Maybe, in the last ten seconds of his program, dozens of poodles in parachutes and confetti would fall from the ceiling.

But Viktor imagined that unfortunately, if there was ever a time for Yuuri to be predictable, it was probably going to be at this competition. The last time they’d spoken, Yuuri hadn’t even wanted to compete any more than necessary. He’d probably do the least amount possible to get by—maybe just to purposefully spite Viktor.

But Viktor really didn’t want that to be the case. More than anything, in a weeks’ time, he wanted to see Yuuri go all out. He wanted to see Yuuri shine and amaze everyone.

And so, if Viktor could do anything to motivate Yuuri to try just a little harder, he was going to.

“I know what you’ve been up to, Vitya,” Yakov said as he stood beside Viktor at the edge of the rink before Viktor’s free skate. He’d coasted through the short program and into first just fine, but now, Yuri was right (although, he’d never directly tell the teen that because if he did, he might not survive it), it was time to take a risk. “Don’t do anything foolish.”

“Oh, hush,” Viktor said dismissively, before he handed off his guards and stepped out onto the ice.

When his name was called, he made his way out into the center of the rink. For a moment before taking his starting pose, Viktor placed his head over his heart and bowed his head.

“This is for you, Yuuri,” he whispered.

Then, it began.

*

 **vityaaaa** Our boy is not here to play. Katsuki better watch his back!

[Video Description: Viktor Nikiforov finishes out his Stammi Vincino program, replacing the quad toe loop at the end of the program with a quad flip]

|

 **cul8terboy** Okay, but I really wonder if Katsuki even saw this.

|

 **goldenblades** there’s no way he didn’t. he’s in japan, not on mars.

|

 **aaaaakkia** I’ve been to Hasetsu, can confirm they do have internet there.

|

 **skatie** honestly, I do not even care if who wins at worlds this year, I am just here for the drama. I hope Yuuri throws something back in Viktor’s face at 4CC. I live for this season.

*

Another week went by, and Viktor sat in his apartment with Yuri, the Four Continents Championship playing on his television.

“Do you think he’ll fall?” Yuri asked, although Viktor knew the animosity that he was expressing was mostly to hide the fact that he was excited to watch the competition and maybe didn’t even mind that he was watching it with Viktor.

“I doubt it, but I suppose there is always the possibility. Do you think he’ll change is short program?”

“He’d be an idiot if he didn’t,” Yuri said. “But then, he already is.”

Viktor hummed.

“But he _is_ wearing a different costume,” Yuri said, and Viktor nodded, a smile spreading across his face.

Yes, Viktor had definitely noticed when the cameras flashed a shot of Yuuri warming up in the back hallways of the arena, his Japan jacket covering up a costume that wasn’t the deep blue of his previous short program costume, but instead was black.

“Black is a little dumb though, don’t you think? Boring. I bet the judges will knock down his performance score,” Yuri grumbled, grabbing a handful of chips from the bowl that was in his lap and shoving them into his mouth aggressively.

“I’m going to wait and see what the whole thing looks like,” Viktor said passively.

Yuri just grumbled indistinctly.

“Oh,” Viktor said excitedly. “His group is up!”

Yuri said nothing, but Viktor could feel him sit up a little straighter beside him on the couch.

Whoever was editing the live feeds together for the live television footage knew what the people wanted, or at least what Viktor wanted, because as Yuuri’s group prepared to make their way out onto the ice, the other skaters were ignored as viewers got a close up of Yuuri taking off his skate guard.

“Is the idiot going to try to warm up with his jacket on?” Yuuri barked. “Do you think he’ll get in trouble for that?”

But then, Yuuri unzipped the jacket.

It was all black with the exception of some silver detailing lacing across the chest and up over the shoulder. And as he took the jacket off, what appeared to be a sort of skirt, which had evidently been tucked up into the jacket, fell loose around Yuuri’s hips.

And it—it looked familiar.

“No!” Yuri gasped, but all Viktor could do was keep staring. “The loser stole your costume design!” he shouted.

And, as Viktor looked at it, he realized that he supposed Yuuri had.

“You should sue him! Complain to the ISU and get him disqualified!”

Viktor only shrugged though as he watched Yuuri take to the ice for his warm up, a kind of tingly feeling settling over his body as he as usual found that he couldn’t take his eyes off the other skater.

Yuri continued to rant all the way through the warm up and the first few skaters, but Viktor hardly cared.

Yuuri was wearing _his_ costume.

Well, inevitably not _his_ costume, but he must have spent a great deal of money to have an exact replica made up.

Of _his_ costume. He, Viktor Nikiforov. Yuuri Katsuki. Him. Costume.

“What is wrong with your face?” Yuri shouted, but that couldn’t wipe the sappy smile from Viktor’s face.

And then, Yuuri was up.

And as the music started to play, Yuuri winked at the camera, and Viktor prayed to every god he knew and even the ones he didn’t, that Yuuri had been winking specifically at him.

But then, as the program continued, and Viktor watched, mesmerized and suddenly feeling a little hot as Yuuri seemed to embody seduction in his routine, he realized that the music was familiar.

It was an arrangement of a song that he had been considering starting to work on a program for next season for. He’d nearly forgotten it, too caught up in chasing after Yuuri, and hadn’t given the song much thought in a while.

But, it was definitely the song.

And Yuuri—Yuuri not only took his costume, but he had somehow managed to take Viktor’s music, his program—a program that Viktor hadn’t even choreographed yet?

_How?_

It was a coincidence, of course.

But it was an insane coincidence.

The kind of coincidence that could have only been a work of the fates.

And god, Viktor realized in that moment, it was over.

Viktor had not only just lost, but he was dead.

Yuuri Katsuki had surely killed him.

Shot him with an arrow straight through the heart.

Viktor collapsed over on the couch as Yuuri finished his program, dangling himself over the arm of the couch.

“Hey, what is wrong with you?” Yuri asked gruffly.

“I give up,” Viktor said. “Yuuri Katsuki is going to win the World Championships this year. I don’t know why I’m even bothering to try. A stupid quad flip at the end of the program, what was I thinking. You were right. I'm never going to be able to do it,” Viktor rambled, suddenly realizing that if he wanted to, perhaps he could cry right now. "I'm a washed up old man. I'll never catch up to him. Never be worthy of him."

Yuri growled, but this time, it was louder than he had ever yelled before.

“Okay, that’s it!” he snapped.

“What?” Viktor asked dejectedly, not turning to look at Yuuri and instead rolling off the couch and collapsing besides Makkachin on the floor.

“Enough with this trying to learn Katsuki’s program to own him shit, you could own him right now if you wanted to, you’re Viktor fucking Nikiforov!”

“What?” Viktor said, looking up startled at Yuri’s words.

“Come on,” Yuri said, hopping up from the couch and storming off towards the door.

“What? But what about Yuuri’s scores?” Viktor said, looking back to where Yuuri sat in the kiss and cry on screen.

“Oh, screw his scores, he won the competition the second he showed up. If he breaks your record, I’m sure someone will tell you later.”

“But!” Viktor protested, but Yuri growled and stormed back across the apartment and grabbed Viktor by his arm.

“I said we’re leaving!” and with that, Yuri pulled Viktor from his apartment, barely giving him time to even grab his coat and keys on the way out.

He could see the row of Yuuri’s scores on the television that had been left on in their haste to leave as Yuri pulled the door shut behind them.

The numbers had been too small to read from the distance though, and Yuuri’s face on the screen had given nothing away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, because I'm me, I've recently uploaded a few chapters of two fics that I'd been working on for a while but hadn't published yet (I always _try_ to have some restraint). There's an Actor AU, [On Your Love](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16655422/chapters/39052117), and then a Poet and Dog Walker AU [Writing Love](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16645334/chapters/39026432). Check them out if you want :)
> 
> Also feeling like we're gonna go back to Yuuri next chapter!


	8. Some Days are Like This

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“And here the world is, thinking Viktor’s stupid final quad flip and your impossibly extra costume stealing is the figure skating drama of this century, when your game of cat and mouse is bigger than any of us poor mortals can even imagine!”_
> 
> _“Which one of us is the cat and which one is the mouse?” Yuuri asked, mostly in an effort to be evasive._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember the first couple chapters of this fic where Yuuri died and then proceeded to basically just be devastatingly sad? Well, do try to remember that as we now reach the point in the story where I spend about more than 3,000 words talking about Viktor’s dick. It’s some kind of development.

“Say something,” a voice that Yuuri recognized as Yuri’s said from behind the camera. He was speaking in Russian, but the phrase was brief and simple enough that Yuuri understood.

“Like what?” Viktor replied, scratching the back of his neck. He was standing in what looked like a dance studio. The shot was kept quite close to Viktor, but Yuuri could just make out the undeniable wall of mirrors and the bar behind him. Seeing Viktor in a studio though struck Yuuri as an unexpected setting for him.

You see, Viktor had never been much of a dancer.

In fact, he’d practice his routines off ice as little as he could get away with. When he did work on choreography off ice, he tended to do it really random places, whenever inspiration struck—marking combinations for his routines in the middle of their living room, blocking out footwork for routines while walking down the sidewalk, standing up from the table in the middle of dinner in a crowded restaurant to show Yuuri an idea he had for an opening or closing pose.

And this wasn’t essentially a problem, it’s just that dance, particularly when it wasn’t directly tied to ice skating—it wasn’t really Viktor.

Basically the only times Yuuri had ever even seen Viktor in a dance studio over the time they’d been together, the other man had only come to see him, and would pull stunts like coming onto Yuuri so unrelentingly he’d talk Yuuri into giving him a lap dance, bartering that he’d leave afterwards.

(Yuuri was admittedly, not entirely unhappy to comply with such requests, if Viktor was the one asking.)

“Anything,” Yuri replied gruffly. “The camera is rolling.”

“Oh,” Viktor gasped. “Uh, hi, Yuuri!” he said, a bit too performatively, giving a big wave. “I—I wanted to show you something, if that’s alright. Can I?”

“He’s not going to respond, moron,” Yuri barked, speaking English now to match Viktor.

“I—” Viktor said. “Well, I guess if you don’t want to, you can shut off the video, da?”

Yuuri found himself rolling his eyes at that in slight amusement.

“Okay,” Viktor said. “Now, I guess.”

Then the camera zoomed out and Yuuri choked.

Viktor was in _tights_.

And now, Yuuri was, well, admittedly fairly _intimately_ familiar with Viktor’s, well, package. But, _oh, god_ , seeing that bulge, and the musculature of his thighs, and oh, it awoke a feeling that Yuuri had been trying very, very hard to repress and ignore since he’d found himself trapped back in this time.

Because you see, thinking about losing Viktor was one thing. Thinking about being angry about losing Viktor was another. Thinking about how ridiculous everything in his apparent life had become was a third. The complicated feelings he had around seeming to become ambivalent to, well, just about everything in a way that Yuuri felt was making him behave slightly erratically was a fourth.

And if you kept going down that list, and then further down, and down, of all the things Yuuri had felt over the past almost two months now in order of their importance to him and the amount he’d thought about them, the concept of missing having sex regularly was probably about ninety-seventh. Or at least, Yuuri was trying, very, very hard to keep it at about ninety-seventh.

This Yuuri was a virgin, he reasoned. This Yuuri has made it twenty-three years before Viktor, and Yuuri could surely maintain two months of abstinence without issue after him.

None the less, the very existence of this moment has probably risen it in the ranks by about fifty places.

Yuuri was happy at least though that the blood seemed to be rushing to his face right now, and not to other places as he stared at Viktor on the screen.

And then music started to play.

And Yuuri gasped.

It was a piece he knew well, and that Viktor did too—The Lilac Fairy. Except Viktor was doing a rendition not of his program, but of the Tchaikovsky ballet.

Years ago, after Viktor had debuted his Lilac Fairy program, Yuuri had immediately gone to Minako and asked her if he could learn the original ballet—at twelve and sixteen, the difference in level between Yuuri and Viktor as skaters was a bit too large for Yuuri to seriously take a shot at imitating Viktor’s programs on ice (though he still tried, of course), so dance seemed like the better option for a tribute.

Of course, the original ballet was done, as ballets characteristically were, en pointe, in which Yuuri had never trained—partially because it’s traditionally not something male ballet dancers did, but mostly because it wreaked havoc on a person’s feet in a way in a way that Yuuri didn’t need on top of the way he’d already ruined his inside his skate boots.

So, he’d worked with Minako to adapt the ballet a little, same basic techniques, different shoes, and the routine they created had become a favorite of Yuuri’s to practice when he needed to calm himself down or relax.

And now, here Viktor was, dancing it.

And he was doing so beautifully.

Sure, some of the technique wasn’t quite there. His feet weren’t always perfect, and while Viktor was very flexible, he didn’t quite have the kind of hyper-flexibility that many ballet dancers put into their extensions.

But watching it was making Yuuri feel something, something that had probably previously fallen at about forty-ninth on the list, none the less.

Then someone suddenly threw an arm around his shoulder and Yuuri looked up, startled, to see Phichit sitting beside him.

“What are you over here looking at, Yuuri, that’s got you all hot and bothered?”

Yuuri hoped and prayed to any god that would listen that Phichit was being teasing and hyperbolic, and not that Yuuri’s previously suppressed lust was actually that apparent.

After the short program, Yuuri had been hanging out with Phichit, as well as a couple friends of Phichit’s, Leo de la Iglesia and Guang Hong Ji. They’d gone to dinner, but then afterwards, Phichit had decided that it was time in their friendship to show the two younger skaters _The King and the Skater_ , and they’d all gone back to Phichit’s room to watch. Yuuri, though, having seen the film at least a hundred times in his life, had allowed himself to get a bit distracted, playing around on his phone instead.

And then that was of course when a text came in from Viktor. It was a month after Yuuri had first texted him, and he’d honestly been hoping that the other man might never respond, but without even thinking about it, Yuuri had found himself fishing a pair of ear buds out of his pocket and slipping them in while Phichit tried to teach Leo and Guang Hong the words to “Shall We Skate?”

Phichit, though, because of course he did, had seemed to have noticed Yuuri becoming withdrawn from the group.

“I, uh,” Yuuri stammered, ineloquently, not quite sure what to say.

 _Oh, well, last month I sent Viktor a video of myself skating to his Stammi Vicino Program, and today, probably in response to my whole Eros program, he finally responded to the text with a video of himself dancing my version of The Lilac Fairy ballet, apparently complete with tights_ , seemed like, well, not a collection of words that could just be casually said.

“Is that Viktor?” Phichit asked, leaning in closer.

“Uh,” Yuuri said. “Yeah, it is.”

“Well that makes it make sense,” Phichit said knowingly. “And he’s dancing?”

“Uh,” Yuuri repeated. “Yeah.”

“Wait, is that—” Phichit asked, his tone of voice different now, a bit scandalized and excited maybe, as Yuuri figured he’d recognized the routine he’d caught Yuuri dancing many a time in their time spent in Detroit together. “No!”

“What’s going on?” another voice asked, and Yuuri looked up to see Leo watching them, Guang Hong looking on curiously as well.

Yuuri paused the video and took his headphones out.

He looked over at Phichit to see the Thai skater staring at him and grinning.

“Yeah, Yuuri,” he said, his smile only growing, “What’s going on?”

“Uh,” Yuuri said again. “I—” he stammered.

Phichit, though, had taken out his phone and was furiously tapping away.

“What are you doing?” Yuuri asked, fearing the worst.

“The video isn’t online!” Phichit announced.

Yuuri blinked. Phichit had thought that Viktor had posted this video on the internet?

“Uh, no,” Yuuri said. “He texted it to me.”

Phichit froze, his phone falling from his hands as he looked at Yuuri eagerly.

“You and Viktor Nikiforov text?” he asked. “And you didn’t tell me?” he squealed.

“Uh, well, we don’t text, really. I sent him a text about a month ago, and he just finally responded.”

“What kind of text did you send where Viktor parading his dick and ass around like that in those tights is the response?”

Yuuri knew he’d never be able to get the words out to explain, so instead, he exited the video and pulled up the one he had sent to Viktor instead.

He handed the phone to Phichit. Leo and Guang Hong looked on as well with curiosity.

And for a few moments as the video started to play, it was silent, besides the echoes of Stammi Vicino from the phones tiny speakers.

And then—

“Oh. My. God,” he enunciated. “Yuuri. What the hell?”

Yuuri decided to just shrug.

“Is that Viktor’s program?” Guang Hong asked quietly, although Yuuri imagined there wasn’t any way he didn’t already know.

Yuuri shrugged again.

“And here the world is, thinking Viktor’s stupid final quad flip and your impossibly extra costume stealing is the figure skating drama of this century, when your game of cat and mouse is bigger than any of us poor mortals can even imagine!”

“Which one of us is the cat and which one is the mouse?” Yuuri asked, mostly in an effort to be evasive.

Phichit, thankfully, seemed to take the bait, pausing to think.

“Hm,” he hummed for a moment, then suddenly with rapid movement, “Smile!” he exclaimed, holding out his own phone and leaning into Yuuri.

Yuuri did not smile and instead raised his eyebrows and made a face. Phichit snapped the shot anyway.

“What was that for?”

“I’m going to ask Instagram what they think—I needed a photo to go with the caption though.”

“Isn’t that what twitter is for?” Yuuri grumbled as Phichit typed away on his phone.

“Eh,” Phichit said flippantly, “My following is better on Instagram.”

Yuuri sighed.

“Be sure to let me know when the results come in,” he said, sarcastic, but defeated.

“Oh, I definitely will. I’ll have a report to you, complete with graphs, done up by Tuesday.”

“Great,” Yuuri said, collapsing back on the hotel bed. “Thanks.”

“So,” Leo said in the falling silence, “Is something going on between the two of you, then?”

Phichit’s head whipped around to look at the American in shock. Yuuri just sighed, staring up at the ceiling

“No,” Phichit said, gasping. “No, there can’t be, right? I’d know. We’d all know—Yuuri would have died.”

Yuuri scrunched up his face a bit at that, but the accidental irony no longer made him freeze up like they previously had.

It turns out, people tend to joke about death in one way or another a lot. It transcends cultures and languages, even.

And Yuuri was getting used to it—being the guy who actually died. There were still times where something would catch him off guard, or when he missed his old life so much it physically hurt. But for the most part, the whole well, dying and time travel thing was just something that had happened to him.

Just like missing a flight or failing a college class or coming in last place in a skating competition or losing a beloved family dog.

“Of course there isn’t,” Yuuri got himself to say almost immediately. “No, that’s ridiculous,” he added for good measure.

“I don’t know, this whole performing each other’s routines thing seems a little intimate, you have to admit,” Phichit said, unhelpfully and apparently suddenly switching sides. “Particularly when,” Phichit picked back up Yuuri’s phone and switched back to the video Viktor had sent him, “I mean, look at that, Yuuri. Look at those tights. Wait, oh my god, I have an idea!”

This gave Yuuri a reason to be nervous.

“I have a feeling, whatever it is, the answer is no.”

“Oh, come on, Yuuri!” Phichit whined.

“Nope.”

“You haven’t even heard what it is yet!”

“I can imagine.”

“Okay, then how were _you_ planning on responding?”

Yuuri furrowed his brow.

“I wasn’t.”

“What?”

“I wasn’t. I didn’t even really expect him to write back, it was kind of a one-off thing.”

“And then the whole having a replica of Viktor’s costume made and dancing a program so erotic it could compete with Christophe Giacometti’s was…?”

“Minako helped me find a seamstress in Hasetsu that used to make costumes for her dancers sometimes, and then she and I sewed on some of the detailing. She used to have to tailor her old dance costumes all the time, so she helped teach me,” Yuuri shrugged, trying to sound casual.

“You say that as if the fact that you and your new coach probably spent hours hand sewing an exact replica of your childhood idol and long-time crushes costume to wear in competition, changing your program mid-season by the way, is just something skaters do all the time. Just a casual mid-season invigoration. Who needs to up the difficulty of some of their elements mid-season when they can just re-design their entire performance?”

“It wasn’t _casual_ perhaps, it was just—”

“The start of the most epic love story ever known,” Phichit supplied, although it certainly was not _at all_ what Yuuri had in mind.

“No,” he said, trying to sound stern but his voice cracking. “I mean, no. Viktor just wants a rival, he’s been all alone at the top for so long. It’s just a bit of fun. Friendly competition”

“So you haven’t even for a second imagined dropping to your knees and mouthing his dick through those tights?”

“Phichit, what an obscene thing to say,” Yuuri murmured nervously. “And he’s probably wearing a dance belt, maybe even a padded one, by the looks of it.”

It was a low blow, perhaps, especially considering that Yuuri knew very well Viktor didn’t need any padding, but then again, the fact that he was having this conversation made him want to die a little.

See, fatalistic humor was everywhere.

“So I can’t talk you into letting me film a video of your pole dancing to send to Viktor then?” Phichit asked.

Yuuri’s eyes widened in horror.

“No!” he said. “Absolutely not!”

Yuuri was already probably treading a thin line with the Eros program in terms of, well, Yuuri couldn’t even put words to it.

But the only reason why he managed to rationalize it was okay to use in this timeline was because he knew for a fact Viktor probably hadn’t started choreographing it yet. Viktor definitely didn’t start preparing the Eros and Agape programs after the Grand Prix final at the earliest in the original timeline, and given everything that was different, he imagined that he probably hadn’t started choreographing them.

But while he was a bit fuzzy on the programs creation in the original timeline, Yuuri did know that Viktor was familiar with the music. He’d told Yuuri once that he’d heard the songs years before and had always wanted to make programs for them, but he’d been waiting for a reason.

And then, after Yuuri’s drunken ridiculousness at the Grand Prix Final banquet, Viktor had thought maybe he finally had enough of a reason to give the programs a shot.

So Viktor wouldn’t know the programs, wouldn’t be spiraling into a crisis of how Yuuri had known about the exact program that had only existed in his mind and on a rink in St. Petersburg.

And so Yuuri ignored the rest—he ignored how sentimental the programs were to Viktor and the possible implications of that—and used the Eros program.

For reasons associated with feelings that were so far down on the list of the feelings Yuuri was trying to repress that he couldn’t even guess their ranking because the act of trying to even rank them was giving them too much thought, Yuuri had skated the Eros program.

Because he wanted to. He needed to.

That was all he knew, and it was enough in a world that apparently didn’t give much care to logic or reason or things even just making sense at all.

“Oh, come on Yuuri, you’ve clearly got him on the end of the line, all you’ve got to do is reel him in!” Phichit pouted.

Yuuri didn’t even bother to respond though, instead just sending Phichit his best withering stare.

Skating Eros was one thing but sending a video of himself pole dancing to Viktor—well. Yuuri couldn’t even get himself to fully think about the implications of that, but he knew, he knew the consequences would be ones he wasn’t prepared to deal with.

No matter how much Yuuri kind of did want to drop to his knees in front of Viktor in those tights.

*

“Are you sure it’s alright?” Viktor asked, looking at Yuuri with worried eyes while biting his lip.

They were in bed, half undressed, and wrapped in each other’s arms.

“Yes,” Yuuri said, shaking his head fondly. “I’m out of the hospital, I have a clean bill of health. So do you. If you don’t want to, that’s fine, I get it—we’ve been through a lot, but just don’t blame me, okay?”

“I just—you know how when you get really cold, your dick kind of turtles in?” Viktor asked incredibly earnestly.

“Turtles?” Yuuri said, laughing. “Very evocative use of words, your English has either gotten really good or you lost some vocabulary in the pond.”

“You know that I mean!” Viktor said, ducking his head into Yuuri’s chest. “What if because we were so cold, they, you know, turtled in and won’t come out the same again?”

“Does that appear to be the case based on your observation so far?”

“I—” Viktor said. “I haven’t had an erection since it happened, actually,” he whispered.

Yuuri softened.

“Not at all?” he asked, gently, and Viktor made a small non-committal noise. “If you have real concerns we can go back to a doctor, but even if it were to be a problem, there are ways we can work around it, if you want—or if you don’t want, that’s fine too, just so you know,” he reassured pragmatically. “I like being with you, but I made it, like, twenty-four years before you came along,” Yuuri said, stroking a hand through Viktor’s hair.

“Have you? I mean, have you had any evidence of turtling?”

Yuuri smiled fondly.

“Nope, I haven’t,” he said confidently, shaking his head. “I’ve been pretty excited, actually, about the thought of getting to do this with you again,” Yuuri said and Viktor quietly gasped. “But, if you’d like to see for yourself, you’re welcome to.”

“Oh?” Viktor asked, clearly a little surprised.

“Can I show you?” Yuuri asked, reaching out to put a hand over Viktor’s.

“Okay,” Viktor confirmed. “Yes, alright.”

Yuuri lifted Viktor’s hand and guided it down to his groin, settling Viktor’s hand over where his slightly waning but still fairly present erection was hidden beneath his pajama pants.

“Does it feel any different?” Yuuri asked.

“I—” Viktor said, his hand squeezing gently and Yuuri let out a pleased hum. “I can’t quite tell. Maybe if there wasn’t so much in the way?”

“Go ahead,” Yuuri said, lifting his hand and letting Viktor take the reins.

Viktor was slow about it, but Yuuri could tell it was more purposefully teasing now than unsure.

He slid his hand up a bit, to get over the waist band of Yuuri’s pants, before diving in under the fabric and taking Yuuri in his hand.

“So?” Yuuri asked.

“Um, seems like it was the last time we met, but I’d have to see it to be sure.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah,” Viktor said, and with a flurry of movement, he was on his hands and knees over Yuuri and crawling backwards down his body to settle in between his legs.

Yuuri spread them eagerly to make room.

Cautiously, although Yuuri knew now for sure it was all an act, Viktor pulled down the waistband of Yuuri’s pants. Yuuri raised his hips slightly to help.

Viktor didn’t bother to pull them down any farther than necessary, leaving them bunched up just below his ass, but that was beside the point, because Viktor was looking hungrily at Yuuri’s erection, which didn’t appear to be having the slightest problem with turtling.

“I think we’re going to be just fine,” Viktor murmured.

“Yeah?” Yuuri said. “Everything look the same?”

“Better,” Viktor said. “But I was talking about me.”

Yuuri laughed.

“I’ll have to see for myself to confirm.”

“Mm, later,” Viktor said with a grin. “I have something I’d like to do first.”

“Oh?”

Viktor used his mouth to respond, but certainly not his words.

*

Yuuri woke up with a gasp and then a groan.

That was new.

And not good.

His lost future dreams, as he’d taken to thinking of them, had not gone away, but they were starting to grow increasingly quotidian.

But it was, somehow, those dreams that were the most painful.

Yuuri, floating surreally in a lake about to die—watching Viktor save him, watching Viktor die, dying alone, watching Makka save him once even, whatever— stopped being traumatic after the third or fourth time he’d had some iteration of the dying dream.

But Yuuri and Viktor grocery shopping together in Japan, having apparently still moved back there in the end after all; or Yuuri and Viktor strolling in a park together with Makka; or Yuuri and Viktor eating dinner with Yuuri’s family—was heartbreaking, no matter how many times he’d had those dreams.

But he’d never had a dream quite that… explicit.

Some kissing maybe. Soft touches. But Yuuri could feel Viktor’s mouth on him that time.

That had never happened before.

Yuuri had always been able to tell when he was in a lost future dream eventually because of the way Viktor touched him and how it felt.

Everything was always so vivid and so real. Even the conversations—whose subconscious thinks to have a conversation about erectile dysfunction in a dream? He’d had dreams where he’d explained the different types of noodles in Japan to Viktor, dreams where Viktor had babbled on about how they should start a doggy play group in Hasetsu. Things that were so random, but not dream random, where conversations usually seem like some kind of montage that they forgot to change the settings for. The kind of random that was a biproduct of real, lived experiences.

But then, always, Yuuri would realize he couldn’t feel anything. How Viktor was holding his hand, but he hadn’t realized it. How Makka was lying on his feet, but he hadn’t noticed until he’d tried to stand up.

But this time, he’d felt Viktor in the most aggravating way possible, in Yuuri’s opinion.

Because while for any other contact, even only a second of holding Viktor’s hand or feeling his arms wrapped around him would have enough to be worth it, or it least it would be easy to try and convince himself that.

But one second of a blow job was undeniably maddening.

But then maybe he hadn’t really felt Viktor. Maybe Viktor had gone down on him and Yuuri had woken up to his very real hard on pressing up against the fabric of his pajamas and somewhere along the way it all kind of mixed together in his memory.

Maybe because he hadn’t woken up with the realization that he was dreaming, his brain had just supplied the memory of this is what _that_ feels like.

But whatever it was, Yuuri had a problem that not only he didn’t want to solve, but that he certainly wasn’t going to with Minako in the next bed.

Which meant the middle of the night suddenly seemed like the perfect time for a really quick cold shower, just to get rid of the problem quick. Maybe he’d even have a pond flashback—that would really zap the issue.

Maybe Viktor would be right about permanent cold-induced turtling and Yuuri would never have to be in this situation again, which maybe in another life would have been unfortunate, but in this life probably convenient.

Yuuri carefully slid out of bed.

Of course, then he stubbed his toe on the suitcase that was on the floor and hissed in pain.

“Yuuri?” Minako mumbled and Yuuri hopped in place.

“Yes?” he whispered back through clenched teeth.

“What are you doing?”

Yuuri froze, the lingering ache in his toe no longer important.

“Going to take a shower?” Yuuri said, although it was more like a question.

Minako rolled over and looked at the alarm clock on the desk between the beds.

“And 2:30 in the morning?”

“Yes?”

“Ugh, Yuuri,” she mumbled, collapsing back into bed.

“What? I’m sorry for waking you.”

“I’m sorry too. Just—go take care of whatever it is you’re taking care of and I’m going to pretend I don’t know about what it is you’re taking care of and we can pretend this never happened in the morning, okay?”

Yuuri was glad that Minako not only wasn’t even looking at him but wouldn’t have been able to see him blush in the dark if she had.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he mumbled. “But if I did, this conversation has already nearly solved the problem.”

“Ugh,” Minako said, rolling over and burying her head under the pillow. “Men are so gross.”

“Agreed,” Yuuri mumbled, not entirely thrilled with his anatomy in that moment either, before slipping into the bathroom and shutting the door.

*

Phichit came running up to Yuuri at breakfast the next morning.

Literally running—he was out of breath when he reached the table Yuuri was sitting at with Minako.

“Viktor,” Phichit gasped. “Liked my tweet!”

“Huh?” Yuuri asked, setting his spoon down into his bowl of oatmeal.

“The one asking which one of you is the cat and which one is the mouse, he liked it!” Phichit repeated excitedly.

“What are we talking about?” Minako asked, raising an eyebrow.

“It was a joke,” Yuuri sighed in explanation. “Phichit used the expression “game of cat and mouse” to refer to me and Viktor, one thing led to another and suddenly he’s surveying the internet.”

“What are the results?” Minako asked.

“Most people seem to think Yuuri is the mouse,” Phichit said.

“Really, isn’t he obviously the cat in this game—always giving chase? They’re probably just saying that because Yuuri always lets himself be viewed as so meek and quiet,” Minako said, reaching across the table to pinch Yuuri’s cheek.

“Someone actually went off on how saying Yuuri is the mouse is racist and it was actually pretty compelling, let me see if I can find—” but apparently, they were never going to get the details of that take because suddenly Phichit was squealing, "Oh my god!”

“What?” Yuuri asked, slightly alarmed.

“Viktor replied to the post!” Phichit gasped and Yuuri froze.

“What?” he stammered. “It must be the middle of the night in Russia, what is he even doing up?”

“Viktor Nikiforov says you’re a unicorn and you’re worried he’s not sleeping enough?” Phichit asked.

“What?” Yuuri repeated, this time just terribly confused.

“ _No one is the mouse, @yuri-plisetsky is the cat, I’m a poodle, and @katsuki-y must be like some kind of unicorn_ ,” Phichit read and Yuuri felt a bit sick for the first time in, well maybe not that long, but in at least maybe a solid few days.

“A unicorn, eh?” Minako mused. “Is he trying to say that Yuuri’s doing impossible things?”

Oh, Yuuri could only wish that Viktor was that clever and biting. But no. This was inevitably a bit more straight forward, and Yuuri knew in that instant he had screwed up horribly.

“I have to go,” Yuuri said, standing up from the table abruptly.

“What?” Phichit said, at the same time Minako said, “Where?”

“Back to Japan,” Yuuri said, before making to turn away from the table, “If you could just submit a withdrawal form from the competition for me, that would be great.”

Minako caught him by the arm before he could make it more than a step away.

“Oh no you don’t Yuuri,” she said, pulling him back and practically shoving him into his chair. “What is going on?”

Yuuri didn’t say anything.

How could he?

Because it was subtle, it was very, very subtle. Viktor’s personality was so light-hearted to begin with, you might be able to write it off.

Just like he tried to write off The Lilac Fairy dance as a bit of competitive fun.

But this was, well, he couldn’t even use the word, it felt too treacherous.

And every part of Yuuri’s entire being did still want to write it off—it was instinctive to him to not think anything was ever about him, to not think anyone liked him in any kind of way.

And if this had happened the first time around, he would have. He would have said that Viktor was just being friendly. That Viktor was the kind of person who used social media a fair deal, responding to fans and other skaters that looked up to him—never saying anything too earnest, but that would still make their day—and this was just like that. That the reply wasn’t even to Yuuri, it was to Phichit. Even though Yuuri had been tagged in the reply.

He would have said that the quad flip and The Lilac Fairy were just good old competitive spirit. That the tights were just with the theme. That the way that Viktor had taken a moment at the beginning of his free skate to bow his head and place his hand over his heart was just a little brand-new good luck ritual that it would be arrogant to think had anything to do with Yuuri.

But this wasn’t Yuuri’s first time around.

And Viktor, Viktor quite possibly, almost likely, in fact maybe even definitely, might, just might, have been flirting with him. Or at least pre-flirting. Flirting like the way birds do, maybe, just kind of strutting back and forth saying, _“Look at my feathers! Don’t they make you want to let me have sex with you!”_ hoping to get their potential mates attention at first, see if they can get a response—before starting to make their real moves.

And that just absolutely wasn’t going to do. It couldn’t happen.

“I—” Yuuri stammered, but as everything came crashing down, Yuuri soon enough remembered that he had chosen the path forward, and he couldn’t really back out now. Well, he could, but—it just didn’t seem worth it anymore.

He was kind of tired.

“Never mind, sorry, I was just—” Yuuri said, helplessly.

“Dude, if Viktor Nikiforov said I was a unicorn, I’d be in shock too,” Phichit said. “Although I’m not sure a unicorn is right for you either.”

No, it probably wasn’t.

He and Viktor should _both_ be poodles.

But that was irrelevant.

“Yeah, I guess, it’s just all a bit surreal,” Yuuri shrugged. “Sorry about that. Of course I’m not going to drop out mid-competition.”

“You better not, I need to know what program you’re going to skate!” Phichit said. “Unless you want to give me a bit of a spoiler. I am your best friend, after all.”

Yuuri looked at Minako, and she raised her eyebrows.

“Nope, no spoilers,” Minako said. “In fact, I’ve got to get my skater ready for his practice session, we best be going,” she said, ushering Yuuri up from the table.

“Aw, come on Yuuri!” Phichit whined.

“Nope, no way,” Minako said firmly, “Come on Yuuri.”

Yuuri gladly let himself be pulled away by Minako.

*

Yuuri had fucked up.

Not in the way he normally did. Or well, used to do. In this timeline.

This timeline where he was too anxious to function, or whatever.

But no, Yuuri had just broken the free skate record again. By another ten points.

He hadn’t even really changed his performance from the Grand Prix final, but maybe the judges just decided to be more generous this time around now that they were less shocked.

Which also meant that even though he hadn’t beaten Viktor’s short program score with the Eros program (Yuuri hadn’t expected to, and that was another reason why he’d allowed himself to do it), his short program score was still strong enough that he now had the highest combined program score as well.

And Yuuri wasn’t even supposed to go to the Four Continents. He didn’t need to, Viktor had even told him as part of their probably (?) defunct agreement.

But then, he’d decided he wanted to see Phichit. And Minako and Yuuko had nagged him. So he’d decided to go.

And not just go, skate the Eros program.

And then of course, even though Yuuri had been planning on skating the Eros program weeks before the competition, Viktor had pulled out that quad flip at the end of his program, and the world went wild.

And when Yuuri did Eros, it went even wilder.

Yuuri had taken to almost never going on social media anymore because it was easier, but he was constantly getting reports from Phichit and Yuuko’s daughters, and he just couldn’t escape it.

But he didn’t need them to tell him that when Yuuri took another one of Viktor’s records, the figure skating corner of the internet nearly broke, because Yuuri had made the mistake of going on Instagram himself.

He’d only wanted to see Viktor’s comment for himself. And post competition in the quiet privacy of a bathroom, Yuuri had allowed himself that.

But then he’d seen so many other things.

So, so many other things.

And now, to make a long story short, it was about five hours later, and Yuuri was drunk.

The details of how he got drunk specifically were irrelevant. Minako and Phichit and the word “celebration” had been involved, that was all that really mattered and all that Yuuri really knew.

Yuuri had maybe tried to abstain but had obviously failed, the words of probably internet strangers swimming through his head.

And even if Yuuri knew that they were probably the comments of teenagers who had recently learned that they had the power to be able to assess a person and know what to say that might hurt them but hadn’t quite realized yet that that power wasn’t a super power. Even if they just didn’t know yet that it was actually something almost everyone had, but just chose not to use often in the name of being decent people. Even if he knew these were comments from people who just wanted a distraction from their own trauma and perceived inadequacies and failures. Even if he was older now than he was at this age the first time. Even if he’d heard it all before and worse. Even if, even if, even if.

None of it mattered, because at the end of the day, all Yuuri could think about was how even though he was on his way to being, officially (technically, he probably already was) the best skater in the world, no one thought he could really do it. Everyone thought he was cheating, or had been lying, or was just going through a period of absurd luck.

And even though he was drunk now, that was sill all he could think about as he lay in his hotel room bed, Minako passed out on the other bed, snoring loudly.

The fact that he was scrolling through the hashtag of his name on Twitter didn’t help.

But, in the storm of hate and arguments about the future of figure skating and Yuuri and Viktor, Yuuri paused as he saw a sketch of a poodle wearing a gold medal, a banner that read “Congratulations Yuuri” in Japanese waiving above it.

And Yuuri smiled.

Because see, poodles were Yuuri’s thing too (even if they were only his thing because they were Viktor’s thing first).

But Yuuri’s fans knew that.

Viktor didn’t though.

Maybe Viktor wasn’t growing as obsessed with him as Yuuri had begun to worry he had.

Maybe knowing about he Lilac Fairy ballet was a fluke or something. Maybe Viktor thought he was just being cute and witty when he’d responded to Phichit’s post.

Or, even if he wasn’t, _maybe_ there was a way that Yuuri could change what Viktor thought of him—turn him off of him forever.

 _Yes, that could work_ , Yuuri decided, smiling up at the ceiling, which was only spinning a little.

 _Maybe_ , maybe…if he told Viktor off, Viktor would think he’s rude and wouldn’t like him anymore.

Which was about as far as that thought process got before he found himself opening up his text messages.

_I would be a poodle too, you know._

And Yuuri sent it, thinking, for god knows what reason _, “There! Take that Viktor, try and like me now!”_

And then, Yuuri clutched the phone to his chest and waited for a response, but at the same time hoped that that had been such a sick burn Viktor would never speak to him again.

He passed out though before he got one.

And the phone lay vibrating, repeatedly, against his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also do yourself a favor a look at the WikiHow for [How to Wear a Dance Belt](https://www.wikihow.com/Wear-a-Dance-Belt).
> 
> Also the Yuuri/Viktor dance studio lap dance, while perhaps already not the most original idea, was kind of borrowed from my other (completed!) fic [Give Me Too Much](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14105355/chapters/32499564). I often feel hesitant to self promo this fic because oh boy, is it _something_. But at the same time it is also like the most joyous and love filled things I have ever written.


	9. Grief is a Mercilous Master

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _First was denial._
> 
> _Then anger._
> 
> _Ah, here we are—_
> 
> _Bargaining._

“Yuuri,” he heard his name being called. “Yuuri.”

“Vitya?”

“Are you a little drunk, my Yuuri?” Viktor asked.

Yuuri’s eyes blinked open and he realized the other man was peering down at him, and Yuuri himself was in fact lying on the floor.

“Mm,” Yuuri said, looking around, trying to get his bearings. Oh, he was in Hasetsu, lying on the floor in front of a table at the resort. For some reason he started to laugh as he realized this. “Maybe, just a little though.”

“Drunk enough to forget?” Viktor asked, smiling at him.

“I don’t,” Yuuri hiccupped, “Do that anymore,” he said. “I don’t forget you anymore. Never again.”

“But if you don’t forget sometimes, when am I supposed to tell you how much I love you and have you act like I mean it?” Viktor said, his voice playful, but the admission struck Yuuri sober.

“Do I do that?” Yuuri asked.

“Hm?” Viktor asked, lying down on the floor next to Yuuri. Yuuri watched as Viktor’s hand stroked along his arm, the sensation that should have gone with it missing.

The dream carried on anyway.

“Do I tell you you’re lying when you tell me you love me?”

Viktor tilted his head, as if looking at a strange creature.

“Only sometimes, less often now,” Viktor said. “I know you don’t mean it though.”

“But did you ever not?” Yuuri followed up.

“Ever not what?”

“Ever not know I didn’t mean it?” Yuuri clarified, maybe less sober than he suddenly felt after all.

“Not in a long time now, lyubov moya,” Viktor said, his hand tracing up to cup Yuuri’s cheek.

“But I used to hurt you, once,” Yuuri insisted, rolling over on his side to look back at Viktor.

“I’ve hurt you too.”

Yuuri opened his mouth and then shut it.

“I love you,” he said instead.

“I love you too,” Viktor said. “I love you so much words cannot describe it, and I speak three and a half languages.”

Yuuri smiled.

“Oh, Japanese now gets a half?” he asked. “That’s a bit confident, considering you told some poor child yesterday that her puppy was scary when you meant cute.”

Viktor’s eyes widened, but they gleamed in the dim lighting.

“That was only a pronunciation error!” he defended. “She should have known by the context.”

“Mhm,” Yuuri hummed.

Viktor huffed.

“Can we get back to the part where we tell each other how much we love each other? I was enjoying that. The teasing is less fun.”

Yuuri chuckled and shook his head.

“I love you,” Yuuri repeated. “Even though you’re ridiculous.”

“I am not sure that does not count as teasing,” Viktor pouted. “But I love you even if you are sometimes mean to me. Now you go again.”

“Go again?” Yuuri laughed. “I love you—” he said, pausing to think, “Because you love me, even when I’m afraid to love you.”

Viktor’s smile was gentle.

“Oh, zolotse, you are so easy to love,” he said. “And when you tell me that it should be harder, it only ever gets easier,” Viktor said softly, laying his head on his arm. “You know, the second you came into my life, I was gone. I may have chased you half way across the world, but I would have followed you anywhere from that very first night.”

“Anywhere?” Yuuri asked.

“Across space and time. To another dimension. Anywhere I would have followed you if I had a way.”

Yuuri looked at the man lying across from him. A perfect copy of Viktor, down to the constellations of freckles on his forearms.

“But you don’t,” Yuuri murmured, letting the dream begin to shatter, fighting past dream Yuuri and his dream life to insert himself even more firmly.

“What?” Viktor asked.

“What if you couldn’t follow me?” Yuuri asked. “What if I was alone, trapped some place that you can never reach?”

Viktor’s face became somber and he paused to think that over, and Yuuri worried the dream was going to slip away before he heard the response.

“Then _you’d_ come back to _me_ , wouldn’t you?” Viktor asked. “Is this about the accident? If one of us died, Yuuri, that’s different. I’d want you to be happy, whatever that meant. But as long as we’re living, and as long as you love me, there is nowhere I wouldn’t follow you. I’d always do my best to make sure you know how loved you are, even if you don’t always fully believe it. You’d do the same for me, I hope?” Viktor asked.

Yuuri looked at Viktor. The resort was quiet. It was late enough there were no customers, just him and Viktor lying on the floor. It was still, and the numbness Yuuri felt could almost have been mistaken for a drunk, sleepy warmth.

And Yuuri desperately wished he could ask this Viktor if it was okay to go back and love him all over again. He wished he could talk it through with him, explain to him exactly what happened. He wished he could have Viktor tell him he was an idiot for trying to leave this other, but same, Viktor behind. Or reinforce that it would be a foolish betrayal to do anything else.

But for some reason, even when he tried to intervene in the dream, he could never get that far.

But, lying here with him, Yuuri had a feeling he knew exactly what Viktor would say.

“Yuuri?” Viktor asked, his brow furrowing in concern as Yuuri didn’t respond.

“Yes,” Yuuri said quickly. “I’m sorry. Yes,” he repeated. “Of course I would.”

*

The replies started off casually enough.

_Oh?_

_Would you?_

But then, as Yuuri had slept through the night and did not respond, Viktor’s restraint had seemed to crumble.

_So you like poodles too then?_

_What’s your favorite kind?_

_I have a standard one, she’s called Makkachin._

_Here’s a picture!_

_(I am also in the picture but ignore me!)_

_(Although I was having a particularly good hair day that day.)_

_(But you don’t care about that, I assume.)_

_(Unless you do.)_

_(I mean as someone who also has nice hair. We could exchange haircare tips, if you want.)_

Yuuri had laughed at that, the first time he read it—what he assumed was a rather mediocre attempt on Viktor’s part to save his desperation. But the laugh had been the kind of half strangled ejaculation, a single, choked “Ha!” rather than something fuller bodied.  

And as Yuuri had read through the responses to the text he didn’t remember sending that morning, he found that he was about ready to go find the nearest pond to drown himself in again, in hopes that this time maybe it would stick, because my god. Viktor fucking Nikiforov.

But it was a strange feeling still, because on one hand, Yuuri was so fond of Viktor and the ridiculous man that he was.

One of the things that Yuuri had always loved most about Viktor was how completely and totally himself he was. Even when he was being awkward, or desperate, or even just plain helpless, it was always incredibly, authentically _Viktor_.

And here he was, a few years younger, a future he knew nothing of erased, and he was still Viktor.

And Yuuri lay in bed that morning, his phone now clutched to his chest, the messages seared into his brain, and the only thing he could think to himself was, _this is heartbreak_.

He’d been devastated before, then frustrated, but those feelings had been different. He’d thought it was heartbreak, but now, he knew better.

The first stage of all of this hadn’t felt real. He’d cried, he’d grieved, but it still didn’t feel like his life.

And then he’d been angry. Furious with the hand he’d been dealt, frustrated with Viktor for accidently perpetuating his suffering, angry at himself for feeling out of control.

But this was different. There was a tingling in his chest like his heart was burning out like a firecracker, and tears were welling up behind his eyes but wouldn’t fall.

Because on the other hand, he loved Viktor.

In a cheesy, ridiculous, impossible way that made why people wrote poetry and made art suddenly make sense—because humans could spend hundreds and thousands of years trying to capture this feeling, but they were never going to get quite it right.

 _He_ _loved Viktor_.

And maybe not just his Vitya, not just some lost period in time. He loved this man, who couldn’t play it cool if his life depended on it. Who was looking for reasons to love someone. Who was hoping for reasons for that someone to be Yuuri.

And Viktor was right here, on the other side of a phone line.

Which suddenly seemed only a few steps away from having him back on the other side of his bed.

And for the first time, Yuuri was considering it. Going back to Viktor. Or, well, going after him for the first time, and being okay that it was the first time all over again,

The mood swings he seemed to be going through in the process of grieving though were giving him whiplash. He didn’t understand how things could just keep shifting, without reason. It was like all the rules that operated in the universe just kept changing in his mind. And Yuuri could look back it himself and his beliefs a week ago or a month ago and feel like that person was some kind of confused and helpless stranger. And every day, everything made sense, but that everything was shifting constantly.

And today, of course he could have Viktor back, right?

There was no good reason why he shouldn’t be able to somehow fix everything.

But then, people studied this, didn’t they? Grief. Maybe this was just the way it was.

They might never have studied the exact reasons for grief Yuuri was experiencing, but grief over death, grief over loss, he was sure people knew intimately well at this point.

Yuuri picked up his phone again and quickly exited out of his messages to open his browser, typing “Stages of Grief” into the search engine. He read through the list.

First was _denial._

Then _anger._

Ah, here we are—

_Bargaining._

_*_

“Viktor likes me, right?” Yuuri asked Phichit at breakfast that morning.

Phichit choked on his tea.

“What?”

Yuuri pushed his phone across the table to his friend, the messages open to Viktor’s new texts.

Phichit looked at the phone in confusion but picked up the phone and read the messages none the less.

And then, after mere seconds, the reaction—

“Oh my god,” Phichit said. “Oh my god!”

“So?” Yuuri asked.

Phichit beamed at him, his mouth hanging open in a gaping smile.

“Can I help you plan your wedding?” Phichit asked.

Yuuri rolled his eyes. He’ll take that as a yes then.

“I haven’t even responded yet,” Yuuri said. “I think marriage is getting a bit ahead of ourselves.”

“But you’re going to respond?” Phichit asked, intently.

Yuuri shrugged.

But he was, he’d decided.

Treacherously, perhaps, but he’d decided none the less.

Because maybe—maybe that wouldn’t somehow be a disastrous thing to do. Maybe—maybe if he just floated along, went with the flow, things would work out a second time around too.

A part of him still knew it couldn’t be that simple. That there were two more stages of grieving, and this—this wasn’t acceptance.

But why should he fight so hard, when maybe, maybe he could have Viktor back? Even if only for a moment, it would be better than never again, right?

Right?

Or maybe even there was some kind of quest the universe had for him, and he’d get to go back if he completed it.

That seemed ridiculous, but then, waking up here had been as well.

So, ahead he could march. Or skate or text or talk or love or kiss or fuck or whatever else was required of him.

Phichit, though, squealed loud enough that everyone at the tables around them looked over at them.

“I’ll help you find a pole!”

For a moment, Yuuri was just confused. Then, catching up, he closed his eyes. And, then finally, he opened them, looking at Phichit with his eyebrows raised skeptically.

“I was thinking that we start with a conversation, before we get into sexting.”

Phichit huffed.

“Pole dancing isn’t sexting. You’d be wearing clothes.”

“Phichit, should I remind you that I’ve barely even kissed anyone. I’ve already skated Eros—I’ve already given Viktor far to unrealistic expectations as far as my sexual proficiency.”

Phichit’s brows knit for a second, but then his eyes widened as he seemed to come to some kind of realization.

“Oh my god, wait, oh my god,” he said, and Yuuri realized that maybe he had more patience than he often felt like he had “You’re going to have sex with Viktor Nikiforov!” he gasped, his voice thankfully quiet this time, like it was a scandalous secret.

Yuuri supposed it probably was on some level.

“No, I’m going to respond to his text,” he reiterated.

Because he wasn’t. If he and Viktor found themselves not on opposite sides of the world and that became an option, then, well, Yuuri would cross that bridge when he got there.

But he couldn’t think about or plan for that. Just a few months back in a body that had never been touched intimately and suddenly the memories of everything that he an Viktor had ever done together seemed a little preposterous. 

Back in the body of his twenty-three year old virgin self, Yuuri couldn’t quite fully believe or even imagine ever doing anything like those memories entailed again. Not that he probably couldn’t remember easily enough how the acts worked if faced with the task, probably. But well, Yuuri’s self doubt was here to take the reigns in all things, as always.

“But, eventually, you two are presumably gonna—” Phichit made a rather obscene gesture and a grunting noise. “I mean, if you two are getting married, especially. I think it’s in the bible.”

“Mm,” Yuuri hummed skeptically. “I haven’t personally read the bible recently, but I do know a lot of people don’t give a damn what it says.”

Phichit finally seemed to falter.

“So… you don’t want to have sex with Viktor Nikiforov?” Phichit asked quietly, looking far too disappointed. “Even if you’re married? I mean, I guess that’s fine, but I just—”

“I didn’t say that,” Yuuri said, cutting Phichit off and putting him out of his misery. Phichit visibly perked up immediately. “I’m just saying that I don’t think it’s appropriate to respond to his messages with a dick pic. Or a strip tease. Or a pole dance.”

Phichit sighed dramatically.

“Fine,” Phichit said. “Be that way. But if he sends _you_ a dick pic at some point, and you just wanna let me like, sneak a peek, just so you know, you have someone to talk about it with who understands, I wouldn’t be, you know, mad.”

Yuuri couldn’t help but chuckle at that.

“How about I just ask him to send you one directly?” Yuuri said, picking up his phone and pretending to type out a message. “ _Hey Viktor, could you send my friend Phichit Chulanont a picture of your genitalia, preferably erect? Maybe include something for scale as well. Thanks!”_

“Yuuri!” Phichit squealed, mock scandalized. “What has gotten into you?” he asked. “And I know you’re kidding, but you could do it you know. I’m not ashamed.”

Yuuri rolled his eyes and set down the phone.

“So, are you excited for the exhibition today?” he asked, changing the subject.

“Sure, I mean I’m not skating,” Phichit said with a shrug. And that was true, he’d finished a respectable 6th place, but only medalists got exhibition slots at the competition. “But don’t think you’re off the hook, Katsuki Yuuri. I expect updates and reports on everything to do with the greatest saga in sports history that is your life.”

“Sure,” Yuuri returned. “Although sports history is full of great sagas, if those tear-jerking athlete spotlights and history documentaries they air during the Olympics are anything to go by.”

Phichit sniffed.

“This is gonna be better,” he insisted. “I know it.”

Yuuri said nothing.

“So, have any more surprises for your exhibition?” Phichit followed up.

“No, not really,” Yuuri said. “I’m kind of over surprises. I just want a fair competition from here on out, that’s more than enough.”

“Sure,” Phichit said, looking like he didn’t believe Yuuri for a second.

*

 _I don’t really think I have haircare tips,_ Yuuri managed to get himself to type out and send.

He was trying to go with the flow, or whatever, but apparently his heart, which was pounding nervously in his chest, didn’t get the memo.

The response came almost immediately.

_Do you use gel or mousse to slick it back for competitions?_

Yuuri furrowed his brow, not the response he’d expected, but perhaps the most reasonable. It was conversational. Yuuri could definitely do conversational. He’d had many conversations with Viktor once. Viktor was easy to talk to, he was one of Yuuri’s best friends, in addition to all the other stuff.

_Mousse, usually._

_Well look at that, a haircare tip!_

Yuuri laughed. Maybe he’d been wrong, maybe Viktor could do cool after all.

_Or the worlds worst brand endorsement. “Mousse! Buy some, cause an obscure athlete you’ve probably never heard of because he didn’t make the last Olympic team and why else would you know who he is uses it.”_

Viktor sent a crying laughing emoji. Or, well, about half a dozen of them.

 _I’d buy it._ Viktor sent. Then followed up with—

_You’re skating in the exhibition today, right?_

_Yeah ¯\\_(_ _ツ_ _)_/¯_

_What exhibition are you doing?_

_My standard one for the season._

_Oh?_

Yuuri sighed.

_Why does no one believe me? I did just skate my regular programs at nationals, didn’t I?_

After this message was sent, the response did not come as instantaneously as the other ones had.

Yuuri set down his phone and went back to ironing out his suit for the banquet that would be later that night and tried not to speculate to much about the reason for Viktor’s delayed response.

He also tried not to doubt his decision to reach out after all, because it seemed like there was a decant chance that Viktor had been invaded by a body snatcher.

But then his phone was ringing, as Yuuri could imagine exactly why the delay had occurred.

And also that he had not been chatting with an imposter, and Viktor’s attempts to be casual had once again shattered pretty quickly.

He pictured Viktor, sitting there with Yuuri’s contact open on his phone, his thumb hovering over the call button.

He’d consult Makka, probably, if he was at home. She’d look at him cluelessly. Maybe sneeze. If he was at the rink, he might consult Yuri. He’d look at him like he was an idiot. He’d probably swear at him.

Then he’d stare at the contact again, and with the kind of determination that wins someone five consecutive Grand Prix’s and four World Championships, would press the button.

And Yuuri, going with the flow, pretending the gap between his Vitya and Viktor was not that big after all, answered it.

“Hello?” Yuuri asked. “Viktor?”

“Yuuri?” Viktor said, after a strange pause.

“Yeah,” Yuuri said. “Viktor, can you hear me?”

“Yes!” the response came quicker this time. “Sorry, I was— sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Yuuri reassured. “So?” he asked awkwardly.

“So what?” Viktor said.

“I don’t know, you called me.”

“Oh right,” Viktor said. “I did. Yes.”

It was quickly dawning on Yuuri that Viktor may very well not have fully expected Yuuri to answer. Or thought through his decision to call.

“So?” Yuuri repeated.

“Oh, I just—” Viktor said. “Why did you steal my costume?” he asked suddenly.

Oh.

“I didn’t steal it technically, just the design, I guess. Are you going to file a complaint with the ISU?”

“No!” Viktor said quickly. “Of course not. I just—” the line went quiet.

“Sorry, Viktor, I think you’re breaking up, you just what?”

“No, I uh, the line is fine. I didn’t say anything.”

“Oh,” Yuuri said.

And then they sat in silence.

And Yuuri suddenly remembered exactly how disastrous they had been at falling in love the first time around. Or, maybe not the falling part, but the getting together part.

“I, uh,” Viktor finally said after a minute.  

“Whatever it is,” Yuuri said. “I’m sure it’s fine. I mean, if you say it.”

“I mean, _why_ did you do it?” Viktor said quickly. “All the reasons I can think of, they don’t, they aren’t—”

Oh. Of course.

_Deep breath._

“Whatever reasons you’re thinking of, they’re probably not wrong,” Yuuri said softly. “They may not be exactly right, but they probably aren’t wrong.”

“Oh,” Viktor gasped quietly. “You know, I added the quad flip to my program at Europeans for you.”

Yuuri smiled fondly and was a little glad Viktor couldn’t see him.

“Yes, I imagined that was the case.”

“Is this,” Viktor asked, “Are we rivals?”

Yuuri furrowed his brow.

“Is that what you want me to be to you?” he said, echoing a similar question that Viktor had asked him once in his previous life.

Viktor responded with a bit more grace and enthusiasm that Yuuri had though, because of course he did.

“Not really,” he said. “It’s a start, though.”

“A start?”

“Yes, a start.”

 _Hm_. That could do. Yuuri could handle a start. At least for now. At least today. And maybe tomorrow and the next day. How far exactly it would take him, Yuuri didn’t know. But right now, this was what seemed right and true.

“Okay,” Yuuri said.

“Okay?” Viktor asked, sounding surprised.

“Yes. That’s okay. With me.”

“It is?” Viktor asked, still sounding flabbergasted.

“Is it with you?”

“What?” Viktor asked.

Yuuri shook his head.

“A start.”

“Oh, yes,” Viktor said. “Definitely.”

“Good, because I don’t want to beat you if you aren’t really trying. I want a fair competition.”

“Oh,” Viktor said, sounding disappointed.

And Yuuri sighed.

“I don’t want to be skating for someone who isn’t skating for me,” he said.

“ _Oh_ ,” Viktor gasped again, softly.

Yuuri was glad for the distance, because if he’d been there, Yuuri might have kissed him.

“So, uh, what are you up to today?” Yuuri asked, changing the topic.

“Eh, same old, same old. Practice. Practice. More practice. Do you have anything before the exhibition?”

“I have a press conference in like half an hour.”

“You won’t run away this time?” Viktor asked.

“I suppose it depends on what they ask, but you aren’t there to freak me out, so I imagine not.”

“I freaked you out?”

Ah, perhaps that was saying a bit too much.

“You do realize that you’re Viktor Nikiforov, right?” Yuuri replied, hopefully ambiguous enough.

“And you’re Yuuri Katsuki,” Viktor said in response simply, like it was an obvious equivalent.

But then, Yuuri supposed, there was a chance that to Viktor, it was.

That was the very logic he’d been operating on, after all—that this Viktor loved him and was worthy of loving again, despite the mess of it all.

But the realization was terrifying none the less. As terrifying as it had ever been.

But maybe, somehow, if he really tried, this time he could try to really believe it, before the public kiss, before the rings, before the proclamations in a dozen different languages, before the sex, before moving in together, before all of it—maybe this time, the first time Viktor tells him he loves him, Yuuri will believe it.

*

Yuuri Katsuki is sitting on a panel, between J.J. Leroy and Otabek Altin.

“Thank you for attending today,” a man standing off to the side says. “China is pleased to have hosted this year’s Four Continents Championship. May I present you with the medalists, Otabek Altin of Kazakhstan in third, Jean-Jacques Leroy of Canada in second, and Yuuri Katsuki of Japan in first,” he paused for applause. “We will now open for questions.”

A reporter in the audience immediately shouts out, clearly trying to be the clear stand out for first question.

“Katsuki, are you concerned about the allegations against you?” he asks quietly and brashly.

Yuuri’s brow furrows.

“What allegations?” he asks.

“There was talk of you doping recently, and yesterday, your costume for the free program has brought concerns of theft.”

“The ISU launched an investigation into the doping allegations soon after they were made at the Grand Prix, and I was cleared. I do not take any performance enhancing substances and will continue to happily submit for the necessary samples for any screenings, random or as the result of investigation. I have nothing to hide.”

The reporter barely even seems to pause to consider this before plowing ahead.

“But the duplicate of Viktor’s costume, do you worry the ISU will penalize you for that?”

“The only way I could imagine the ISU would take any action against my costume for the short program was if Viktor Nikiforov himself complained. And he has told me that he won’t,” Yuuri answers, looking frustrated.

A gasp goes through the crowd though.

“You asked Nikiforov for permission to use his costume?”

“No, but I knew he wouldn’t mind,” Yuuri says firmly.

“Alright, how about a question for another one of medalists,” the man who was moderating the conference tries to cut in, but the reporter who was interrogating Yuuri doesn’t let up.

“And how did you know this?”

Yuuri rolls his eyes before seeming to catch himself.

“Because Viktor Nikiforov loves a surprise.”

“Do you have any other surprises in store for us?” the reporter asks.

“I didn’t,” Yuuri says cryptically. And then, “Why don’t you tell them, J.J. about where your music came from this season? You’ll have to excuse me.”

J.J. looks taken aback, but hesitantly begins to explain the song that he commissioned, and how he intends to start building a brand around his performances and himself.

And Yuuri pushes his chair back from the table and leaves.

*

“What can I do?” Viktor immediately asked as he picked up the phone.

He sounded angry, which surprised Yuuri.

“No, _I thought you said you weren’t going to walk out or the press conference_ or _I thought you said no more surprises_?” Yuuri said, his laugh bitter.

“Those questions were completely uncalled for,” Viktor said, and it surprised Yuuri that Viktor already knew, that he had taken the time to watch the conference live. “You should file a complaint with the ISU, have him and whatever news organization he’s associated with barred from receiving press clearance at all future ISU events.”

Yuuri scoffed.

What did it matter? Yuuri had chosen a life of scandal this time around, apparently. No one was ever going to think that Yuuri could perform without cheating.

And maybe he was. It certainly wasn’t fair that he had two extra years of training under his belt. Of course there wasn’t a rule that said, “ _If you happen to find yourself back in time, you cannot compete._ ” But maybe it was supposed to be implied.

Just like how maybe he wasn’t supposed to try to win back the heart of former fiancés, probably.

How could he be so foolish, to think that he’d ever be worthy of anything once, let alone twice.

And now what, he was on the phone with Viktor, who was, what, functionally his ex, been together once but now not, except not even an ex, just a nothing.

Yuuri laughed harshly.

“Are you alright Yuuri?” Viktor asked.

“It’s fine,” Yuuri said. “Sorry, I think this is a mistake.”

“What?” Viktor asked.

“I’ll see you are worlds Viktor, I guess. Maybe.”

“Wait!” Viktor said. “Don’t you dare hang up,” then, more quietly. ”You have to stop running away from me.”

Yuuri froze.

“What?”

For a second, Viktor didn’t say anything.

“You should skate my Aria for your exhibition.”

“What?” Yuuri repeated, feeling, feeling, well—just a lot. Terror, but also something warmer, wearing away at the edges.

And that’s what Viktor had come to be for Yuuri, once. Because it wasn’t like Yuuri’s anxiety and self-doubt had ever just gone away, even after he did have real, important gold medals under his belt. But Viktor helped dull the edges of his anxiety a bit sometimes, make the cut of it less sharp, less painful. He helped what would have metaphorically been deep gashes in to scratches some days.

“Stammi Vicino,” Viktor clarified. “You should skate it for your exhibition.”

“What?” Yuuri repeated like a broken record. “Your solution to me being accused of stealing from you is to steal more from you?”

“It’s not stealing if I give you permission. I choreographed it. I own it. If I say you can skate it, then I don’t see any reason why you can’t. Worst case scenario, what, they penalize your prize money? It’s just an exhibition, it’s not like they can disqualify you. And I’ll pay you back if they do. But I’ll fight them if they try.”

“I’ve already submitted my music,” he said helplessly.

“Ask them to change it. It’s just a switch of a CD, I’m sure you can be convincing.”

Yuuri’s mind was spinning. This was a lot, a lot faster than he’d anticipated. But then, there hadn’t been anything slow or lazy about falling in love with Viktor the first time around, and if it had felt that way, it was only because Yuuri had been oblivious.

But Viktor had hit the ground running. He followed him half way around the world and then said hello to Yuuri completely naked and tried to sleep in his bed that first night. He gave up everything to coach Yuuri over one dance, one program, just because Yuuri had asked.

This was nothing, in comparison. But still it felt like so much, so much after weeks and weeks of Yuuri not allowing himself any of it, and of thinking he might never have it again.

“But why?” Yuuri asked, unsure of what else to say.

“Because, no one will doubt you after seeing you perform that program,” Viktor said earnestly. “I know I certainly don’t.”

Yuuri didn’t say anything for a moment.

“Please,” Viktor said. “I want you to. You don’t have to, if you really don’t want to. But I want—I want them to know. I want everyone to know.”

That punched Yuuri in the stomach—the tone of his voice, the unspoken implication that Viktor seemed barely able to hold back behind it.

And when Yuuri recovered enough from the shock of it, there was only one thing he could say—

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll see what I can do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been half a minute between updates! 
> 
> Also, thank you everyone who gives kudos and leaves comments! And if you've left a comment on one of my fics and were hoping for a response, I've fallen a bit behind on replying to things, but I'm trying to catch up, I swear. I love seeing what you all think and what you like and how you read things and chatting in the comments, and no matter what I definitely read every one.


	10. Our Feelings are Valid because We Feel Them

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while, have a pile of angst.

Yuuri had never felt more like a celebrity in his entire life.

Which was not a feeling that he’d ever expected to feel, quite honestly.

It was not something he’d even imagined.

He’d seen clips of paparazzi chasing after celebrities, he’d seen clips of Viktor caught up in small swarms occasionally.

But Yuuri never imagined himself there.

But now suddenly, at Viktor’s side, he had been.

Which should have occurred to him as a possibility, at the very least.

All that time he’d spent imagining Viktor, imagining having various kinds of relationships with him, all those fantasies that felt treacherous and impossible.

Until it wasn’t.

But if being caught up in Viktor’s crowd had never occurred to him, he’d definitely never considered a crowd of his own.

But then Yuuri had won the world championship.

And Viktor Nikiforov had officially confirmed his return to competing next season, confirming the rumors that had been bubbling and that Viktor had been feeding since the Grand Prix when he moved Yuuri to Russia and they started training along side one-another.

And outside the TD Garden in Boston, photographers had spun around him and Viktor, shouting questions at the _both_ of them.

It had been _insane_.

Then there had been a hand on the small of his back.

“Are you okay?”

He’d looked up at Viktor.

And had smiled, “Yes.”

Viktor had smiled back.

“Good. Now, let’s get out of here. I don’t think there’s anything we need to say to anyone that can’t be better said on the ice.”

*

“Katsuki, does Nikiforov know you stole his program?”

“Do you think this will effect your eligibility for the World Championships?”

“Do you think your medal here today will be revoked?”

“Katsuki, what did you hope to accomplish by skating Viktor Nikiforov’s program?”

 _Yes, no, no_ , and _honestly I’m not quite sure in this exact moment but all I know was some very pretty boy I was apparently trying to get back together with had told me to and that had at the time seemed like a good enough reason_ , Yuuri answered in his head, but certainly not said aloud.

The questions were shouted at him rapidly, mostly in English, occasionally in Japanese. Sometimes other languages that he didn’t speak, although, in those cases he was obviously less clear if they were questions or… comments.

He’d known that if he went ahead and skated Viktor’s program for the exhibition there would be an upset. He’d spent enough time running away from reporters to have expected this.

But he’d forgotten quite what it was like.

He’d forgotten how much he hated it.

His phone vibrated and Yuuri made to fish it out of his pocket.

Minako was supposed to be getting a car back to their hotel and was supposed to let them know where she was so they could make their escape back to the safety of the hotel.

Phichit was a few paces ahead of him, screaming at people to get out of their way.

There was a small army of arena security trying to set up a perimeter.

Yuuri thought maybe he should send the security team something later. They probably hadn’t expected that they’d have to spend their day this way.  

Of course, Yuuri hadn’t exactly either.

Yuuri was, as always still himself, and found himself embarrassed and overwhelmed by the attention.

And despite the literal dozens of people trying to protect him from the swarm of reporters and skating fans right now, he felt very alone.

Yuuri’s phone vibrated again, in his hand now, and he looked down at it.

There was a text from Minako, letting him know that she had a cab and was waiting just up ahead.

But then there was another text.

From Viktor.

_Are you okay?_

Yuuri exhaled.

Phichit came up to him, and he could see a path cleared to the car up ahead, Minako standing at the door.

“Come on, let’s get you out of here,” Phichit said.

“One second,” Yuuri said, turning to the nearest reporter, one with a camera clutched in his hands.

The reporter, immediately noticing the attention Yuuri was giving him, immediately opened his mouth, surely to shout another question, but Yuuri beat him to it.

“There’s nothing I have to say to you that hasn’t been said better on the ice.”

And then he turned away, closing the distance between him and the cab, greeting Minako with a meek smile as he ducked into it.

She closed the door behind him, muffling the roar of the crowd.

Yuuri unlocked his phone and clicked into his messages.

_I’m just fine._

_*_

Viktor Nikiforov sat on the couch in his apartment, Makka curled up on his lap.

The television was on to the sports channel, and Viktor watched the morning news.

It shouldn’t have surprised him to see Yuuri there on the screen.

That was the only reason he’d turned on the television, after all.

He’d already streamed the Four Continents championship live, all the way through the exhibition skates. He knew what had happened.

But there was something jarring, to see Yuuri spoke about in Russian on his television.

Just a few months ago now, Viktor had watched Yuuri skate so mindbogglingly well on the ice right in front of him. He’d sat next to Yuuri at the press conference. He’d stood in front of Yuuri in the door of his hotel room. He’d hovered over Yuuri awkwardly as he’d retched on the floor of his bathroom. He’d dreamed of Yuuri tucking him into bed. Maybe Yuuri actually had. Yuuri had sent him a video of himself skating the Stammi Vicino program, alone and ethereal in a dimly lit and empty arena.

But the actual distance between them now felt so jarring as he rewatched the footage of Yuuri skating the same program—this time in a jam-packed arena—while a woman speculated over the clip about Yuuri’s future. About Viktor’s future. And well, it was so public.

And then Viktor realized that if he felt that sudden shift from Yuuri’s private and mysterious winning streak to making international spectacle out of… their _start_ , then Yuuri probably did too.

And Viktor thought his heart may have collapsed in on itself inside his chest.

And felt something that maybe was something like regret.

Because maybe he’d had something good with Yuuri. Maybe this was a start of something really good, and he’d ruined it.

He’d seen a chance at a bit of drama, a surprise, a chance to mix things up, and he’d taken it.

Because that’s what he did.

And maybe that’s why he’d never had a long-term relationship. Or any relationships outside of his coach and rinkmates and Chris. Maybe that’s why he was so alone.

Because people liked things that are reliable. They like their privacy.

But Viktor had built has career on being public and surprising. He didn’t know anything else.

And Yuuri had tried to show him, and he’d quite possibly ruined it instead.

And Viktor wasn’t sure there was hope for him, for his life after skating if he couldn’t get this right. He had to be better than this.

 _“I don’t want to be skating for someone who isn’t skating for me,”_ Yuuri had said.

But that probably applied metaphorically to other things.

He couldn’t expect Yuuri to shatter his life for Viktor and Viktor to do nothing.

So he picked up his phone and sent Yuuri a text.

_Are you okay?_

Viktor didn’t know when, _if_ he’d get a response.

It definitely probably wasn’t enough to make up for everything Yuuri was going through right now.

But then, he did.

_I’m just fine._

Which was reassuring. Probably.

Unless he was being passive aggressive?

But Viktor was already running late for practice.

So he tucked his phone away, accepting that Yuuri was busy if not busier, and wasn’t lying to him.

Yuuri was fine, he reassured himself.

But it became all the more reassuring much later that day, when he caught Yuri watching a video clip of Yuuri on his phone during practice.

“What’s that?”

Yuri just rolled his eyes and scowled before passing Viktor the phone.

Viktor took it and replayed the clip.

And he watched as Yuuri, looking tense in a crowd of reporters, looked down at his phone and seemed to relax.

He watched as Yuuri marched up to the camera recording and boldly stated, “There’s nothing I have to say to you that hasn’t been said better on the ice,” before turning on his heel and disappearing into the back of a car.

“Are you crying?” Yuri screeched, snatching his phone back out of Viktor’s hand.

Viktor lifted a hand to his face to find his cheek wet.

“Oh,” he said. “Sorry. I—”

Viktor stammered, falling silent, and Yuri stormed off before he could gather himself again and finish the sentence.

Alone, he stood at the edge of his home-rink in St. Petersburg. For a second, he found himself imagining Yuuri on this ice in front of him, gliding out of a quad flip. Looking straight at him.

“I couldn’t have said it better myself,” Viktor whispered aloud, to no one at all.

*

It would appear that the entire world was officially invested in the outcome of the 2014-15 Men’s Singles Figure Skating season.

People who had never watched figure skating any time besides the Olympics were suddenly invested.

News sources had picked up on the rivalry, the challenger to The Great Viktor Nikiforov, and had been peddling it across mass media as the sports drama of the century.

Or at least that was the headline on the featured article at the top of the New York Times website, and the Asahi Shimbun, and Pravda, and a host of other elite international news organizations that kept getting screenshot and directed into Yuuri’s Instagram feed. Yuuri was sure he had no business even being mentioned at the bottom of the sports section of any of these publications.

But either way, apparently, the world was watching.

Yuuri’s exhibition skate had apparently been the tipping point.

Skate fans were already speculating who should be cast to play him and Viktor in the eventual biopic.

And Yuuri decided he needed to stop watching.

And thinking.

Because god, he couldn’t think about the implications of this new life he’d carved out for himself.

_Hey, can you let Yura know that I’m deleting my Instagram app. And basically like all social media. If he wants to contact me, he can text me._

The response didn’t take too long to come.

_Can we video chat?_

Yuuri looked across his hotel room, to where Phichit and Minako were deep in conversation about coming up with a media strategy, apparently having decided that they were both now Yuuri’s publicists.

Fuck, he might need to hire an actual publicist.

_Sure, just let me find somewhere private._

“I’m going to take a walk,” Yuuri announced.

“Oh, no you aren’t. Not until we’ve hired you a body guard.”

Yuuri just stared blankly at them, hoping they were kidding, but realizing that even if they were, that it probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to at least check in about what exactly the security plan was going to be for the world championship.

A team of people somewhere were probably already assembling.

The thought of himself being talked about, by some many people, who were strategizing around himself like he was a problem, and probably without any intentions of consulting him, made him sick.

Not to mentioned just the concept of being a household name. Tickets were probably already sold out for the World Championship and were being resold for extortionate prices on the internet.

Nope, no, no.

He couldn’t think about that.

“I’m just going to find a quiet place to take a call. I won’t leave the building. I’m certainly not going to walk into a crowd.”

“What call?” Phichit asked, immediately perking up.

Yuuri didn’t answer the question.

“Look, Minako already has an app tracking my phone on hers. If I’m not back in half an hour, feel free to call a search party.”

“Oh, he wants to go talk to his boyfriend in private,” Phichit translated for Minako, although Yuuri imagined that she had already caught on.

“Mm,” she hummed, raising an eyebrow it him.

“Why don’t we take this to my room, leave Yuuri alone,” Phichit said to Minako.

“I suppose we can do that. Just remember safe sex,” she said, her smile teasingly malicious.

Yuuri closed his eyes and his cheeks burned.

“For what it’s worth, he’s not my boyfriend,” Yuuri stammered. “And you can’t catch and STI over video chat, and as much as you’re advocating for it, Phichit, I really don’t think we’re at a show each other our genitals stage in our relationship.”

Phichit sighed dramatically as he packed up his laptop and made his way to the hotel room door.

“If I were you, I’d make sure to take the opportunity while I had it. An anvil could fall out of the sky tomorrow and kill you and you’d never have…”

Oh, if only they knew what he’d already done with Viktor and what he’d lost.

Thankfully, Minako cut him off before Phichit could finish.

“He’s certainly never going to have the chance if you loiter her teasing him.”

Okay, so maybe she wasn’t exactly his savior.

“I hate both of you.”

“Put a condom over your phone screen, just in case!” Phichit called as Minako pushed him out of the room.

“Let us know when it’s safe to come back!” she called before shutting the door behind her.

Yuuri groaned.

 _Okay_ , he texted Viktor, _the coast is clear._

*

Yuuri’s face appeared on the screen of Viktor’s laptop and Viktor’s body seized with adrenaline the way it does when you almost trip but catch yourself before you fall.

“Hey, is the connection alright?” Yuuri asked.

“Yeah,” Viktor said, swallowing the lump in his throat. “Yeah, it’s just fine.”

Yuuri was sitting on what looked to be a bed, probably in a hotel room, wearing a t-shirt. He had on his glasses, which Viktor had forgotten that he wore when he wasn’t skating.

Viktor wondered how he looked to Yuuri, equally dressed down, sitting in his apartment on the couch, having returned from his early morning training, hair damp from a shower and falling in his face.

“Good,” Yuuri said and smiled gently.

“So, how are you? Really?” Viktor asked.

“I’m fine,” Yuuri said with a shrug and Viktor sighed.

“Look, I know it’s a lot. If I had known it would be like this, I wouldn’t have suggested it. I didn’t realize this would be different than everything else that has happened this season.”

“It’s fine,” Yuuri said again, “Really. You didn’t make me do anything. It’s fine.”

“But is it really?” Viktor asked softly, trying to sound earnest.

Yuuri took in a long, slow breath and shrugged, seeming unable to form words.

“It is what it is. No where to go but forward.”

Viktor pursed his lips.

“Yeah, that’s true,” he said. “Yeah. Forwards.”

“So, how are you?” Yuuri asked. “You’re a part of this too.”

“I’m fine,” Viktor said.

“You’ve always wanted a season like this, haven’t you?” Yuuri said, to Viktor’s surprise. “You’ve been aching for it.”

And somehow, Yuuri was right. Had he really become that transparent? It was clear that Yuuri had admired Viktor on some level obviously long before they met, but that was the kind of observation he’d hoped even his biggest fan hadn’t been able to catch onto.

Viktor was bored, he was lonely, at the top and had been for a while. And he’d been trying his best to hide it. To never seem ungrateful, to never seem weak. And yet, somehow Yuuri seemed to know this like it was as basic Viktor Nikiforov trivia as his dog’s name or the color of his blades.

And it was startling but made Viktor all the more sure that not losing Yuuri, or whatever they had started was incredibly important.

“Yeah,” he responded softly, glancing away from the screen. “Something like that.”

“I hope it’s not a disappointment,” Yuuri said, as softly as Viktor.

Viktor looked back at Yuuri’s face immediately.

“No, of course not,” Viktor said quickly. “Nothing like that. It’s just—” but Viktor couldn’t finish because he didn’t know quite what this was.

But he did. He did.

Yuuri was the surprise he’d want but hadn’t ever expected, never thought he’d get. Not just his talent, or his scores, or his petulance for proving people wrong and showing Viktor up. Yuuri was someone he’d thought was never going to come along, because Viktor didn’t deserve any more than he’d already gotten. Which is to say too much.

Too much of the wrong thing, but hindsight is 20/20.

“It’s just,” he tried again after a long pause of silence. “I never could have even imagined this,” he offered hesitantly. “I never could have imagined you,” he added so softly he hoped that Yuuri hadn’t heard it. “I never thought that something like this could happen to someone like me.”

Viktor had to look away again from Yuuri, who just sat patiently, so still Viktor would have worried the screen was frozen if it weren’t for the other skaters occasional blinks.

Something like what? he imagined Yuuri asking the treacherous question that Viktor didn’t know the answer to yet, or if he did was too afraid to hazard a guess and risk finding out he was wrong.

But Yuuri didn’t say anything.

He didn’t say anything for so long that Viktor forced himself to look back at the screen.

But when he caught Yuuri’s gaze in the screen, Yuuri stared at him with wide, wet eyes.

He was crying.

“Sorry,” Yuuri said with what was unmistakably a sob, before he ducked his head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I didn’t get it. I didn’t believe you. You were right.”

Viktor wasn’t sure what Yuuri could have possibly meant by that, but before he could even begin to try and ask, Yuuri was talking again.

“I’ve got to go,” he said. “I’ve got to go.”

And then the screen went black and the call ended.

*

It had been early in their relationship.

They’d just moved to St. Petersburg together.

And they were still getting to know each other as people.

Not just as each other’s projection of hope and dreams and a future, but actual people. Who sometimes left clothes lying around (Yuuri) or didn’t think it was a big deal to wear shoes in the apartment sometimes if they were in a rush (Viktor). Who sometimes stayed up half the night because their minds were too loud to try and lie alone with them (Yuuri) or who pushed people but weren’t prepared to deal with them snapping (Viktor) or who were sometimes too stubborn and proud and afraid to ask for help (both of them).

And they were having their first fight.

Although the thing was, Yuuri wasn’t quite sure what Viktor was mad about.

Which was the problem.

But all Yuuri new was that Viktor seemed to be hurt by something Yuuri had done or said.

“Vitya, I’m sorry,” Yuuri tried again.

“You don’t know what you’re apologizing for!” Viktor had countered as he began to put on his shoes, clearly making to walk out.

“Then tell me!”

“You never seem to believe me!”

“I’ll believe you! I’ll believe anything you say, what have I done that would make you think I don’t trust you completely?” Yuuri had asked, his voice growing strained.

“You think that you have the corner of the market on pain, Yuuri!” Viktor had said bitterly. “And I get it, it would be unfair of me to not acknowledge my luck and my privilege, but I just wish you of all people would understand, really understand and believe me. You’re sympathetic, but it never seems to quite be real to you. My pain never seems valid to you.”

Yuuri had opened his mouth and shut it a few times, not at all sure what he meant by that, still.

Of course Yuuri thought Viktor’s pain was real. Of course he did. He knew Viktor hurt. In a way different from him, but he knew Viktor felt it none the less.

But when Yuuri couldn’t seem to force any of these reassurances out of his mouth, Viktor just shook his head.

“I’m going to take Makka for a walk,” he said, taking Makkachin’s leash off the hook by the door, causing her to come running.

And then Viktor clipped the leash onto Makkachin’s collar and disappeared out the door.

He came back on hour later and sat down next to Yuuri on the couch.

“How do you feel about pasta for dinner?” he’d asked.

And then life went on.

And Yuuri had assumed that Viktor had gotten over it, whatever it was.

*

Yuuri had to get out.

He had to go somewhere. He didn’t know where, but he had to go somewhere.

Yuuri grabbed a cap and a pair of sunglasses of Minako’s that were sitting on the bureau and put them on before grabbing his coat and walking out of the hotel room.

It was still winter, and a rather bitter one, but Yuuri didn’t care about the cold.

It was late afternoon, and Yuuri really should have been getting ready for the banquet that evening. He should have been packing so he’d be ready to head back to Japan that evening. But instead he just found himself walking aimlessly.

But something was crashing down on him.

A realization that he’d had too late.

Something he’d never get to apologize for.

 And it was starting to hurt again.

But he’d known that Viktor had been lonely before he’d met Yuuri. He’d known that Viktor had at times even been a little depressed.

But he’d never, well, words that Viktor had told him once, one of the only times they’d ever fought, “You think you have the corner of the market on pain, Yuuri. My pain never seems valid to you.”

And Yuuri had never understood what he’d meant by that. Of course Viktor’s pain was real to him, of course he knew that Viktor wasn’t as strong as he tried to pretend to be for the world.

But now Yuuri realized that he’d thought of that pain a bit like the way an adult think of the pain of a child throwing a tantrum over not being able to find their favorite toy or having to eat soup for dinner when they wanted chicken. You can recognize that the feelings are real, and that they are intense, but they probably aren’t incredibly warranted in the scope of actual heart ache and stress and trauma. As an adult you have perspective.

Yuuri had always treated Viktor’s feelings with skepticism.

He’d viewed himself as someone who really suffered, who really knew suffering and self-doubt and failure, and had perspective that Viktor just didn’t.

That Viktor just didn’t know what real pain was like.

And that was an incredibly awful thing to think. And, if was very likely incredibly untrue.

But Yuuri had thought he'd started to get better at not denying Viktor's emotions.

He’d started to believe Viktor when he expressed fondness and love for Yuuri.

But he hadn’t gotten far enough.

And now he’d never get to apologize to Viktor.

He’d never get to tell Viktor that he understands now, and he’s so, so sorry.

Because it took being flung across the universe, into the life of a different Viktor, and for that Viktor to echo Yuuri’s own sentiments without even really knowing Yuuri at all for Yuuri to realize how cruel he’d been.

How alike his and Viktor’s pain had been.

How much Yuuri had never once deserved him.

And as Yuuri continued to wander, for how long he didn’t know, he realized he was tired again.

That bone deep exhaustion that he’d felt too often in this new life, that he thought he’d finally escaped in the old.

And he was cold.

And the sun was almost set.

There was what looked to be café at the end of the street he was walking down.

The big front window illuminated golden scene of soft lighting and plush sofas and people chatting and laughing.

And so he went in, just to sit down for a while.

He’d by some miracle remembered to bring his wallet, so he bought himself a tea, and found a seat at a big plush booth back in the corner.

And the tea was warm, and he was warm, and he realized that he wasn’t just tired, he was sleepy. His eyelids began to droop, and his head rested against the wall.

And he remembered that if he fell asleep, he’d get to see his Viktor again.

Maybe this time he could break past the dream and say the things he needed to say.

Maybe he could ask Viktor if he could ever forgive him.

Maybe Viktor could let Yuuri know if he ever deserved anything as good as him ever again.

*

Someone was talking to him, but he couldn’t understand what they were saying.

Yuuri woke up to find someone nudging at him, speaking a language Yuuri didn’t understand.

He blinked at them slowly for a few seconds, and then remembered that he’d fallen asleep in a café.

They probably wanted him to leave. It must be late. They must have been closing.

“Sorry,” he said in English, hoping they’d understand. “Sorry,” he repeated again, quickly gathering himself and making to stand up and rush out of the shop, rushing out without looking back.

It was very dark now, and Yuuri realized that he didn’t have his phone on him and couldn’t check the time. Or look for directions back to the hotel.

He’d abandoned it in the hotel room what he’d fled.

Minako and Phichit were probably freaking out.

And Yuuri stood on the street, snow beginning to fall around him, and a blustery wind picking up, and he realized he didn’t know how to get back to the hotel.

 _Shit_.

But, all of that seemed secondary to the fact that when Yuuri had fallen asleep, he hadn’t dreamed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still trying to write when I can, I swear. But also, every bit of free time I've had over the past two months I've thought about writing and then didn't. 
> 
> In other news, life continues to be a thing and I hope you all are doing well! I’ve been writing for about seven hours straight to get this chapter out and am going to go take a walk now.


	11. Time is an Illusion, Timing is an Art

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _And you might start to climb up on the ledge a little thinking about it, hooking your feet into the grate of the railing, wanting to get a better look over the edge at what’s below._
> 
> _Wanting to look death in the eye as it taunts you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are some mentions of a (potential) suicide attempt in this chapter. It's probably the least traumatic discussions of death so far in this fic, but just so you know.

A police officer had found him loitering on the edge of a bridge in a snowstorm.

Yuuri had, the second he was caught, understood that the implications of loitering on the edge of a bridge, particularly when it was dark and there wasn’t even much of a view, wasn’t great.

But he _wasn’t_ going to jump, or anything like that.

Well, probably not.

But he was having the worst time explaining that.

Because the police officers that found him didn’t speak much English or Japanese and didn’t seem to understand Yuuri’s reassurances that he didn’t plan on going over the edge and that he just needed directions home.

And, to make things worse, Yuuri didn’t quite know _how_ to explain to other people how he’d gotten caught seemingly climbing up on the ledge of a bridge. It made sense, in Yuuri’s mind, how he’d ended up there.

Because if you had spent so long wandering around, lost, in a snow storm, you would eventually have to stop, and look around, and think to yourself, “Wouldn’t I have remembered crossing over a bridge earlier?”, wouldn’t you?

And then, as you stood there, snow flurrying around you, you’d realize that it’s so cold that you’d have to wonder if you’re going to freeze to death. It was only natural.

And then, maybe, because you happen to be standing on a bridge by pure accident, you’d look down over the edge from a great height and wonder which kind of death you might prefer, which kind of death might hurt less—falling or freezing?

And then if you happen to be Yuuri Katsuki, you might wonder how those two deaths might compare to drowning. Although, even if Yuuri’s cause of death was likely the drowning bit, he supposed he had already died from all three.

And this is the part where Yuuri worried he would lose people.

Because if you were Yuuri Katsuki, and only Yuuri Katsuki, you might wonder if you’d really die if you were to launch yourself over the edge, or if you’d just get to start all over again—bouncing around the multi-verse, collecting qualitative data on the pain and trauma of dozens of different kinds of deaths.

And you might start to climb up on the ledge a little thinking about it, hooking your feet into the grate of the railing, wanting to get a better look over the edge at what’s below.

Wanting to look death in the eye as it taunts you.

But then, suddenly, because despite having too much of it you have incredibly poor timing, someone is shouting at you in a language you don’t really speak, and you’re being pulled off the railing, and you’re in the back of a police car, and you’re taken to a hospital.

And somewhere along the way, you manage to find someone who speaks enough English to tell them your name and get them to call the hotel you’re staying at to get someone to come pick you up before you’re institutionalized in a foreign country for a suicide attempt.

And then, there you are, sitting in a hospital observation room, staring at your lap, while Minako and a JSF official watch you out of the corners of their eyes worriedly while they negotiate your release from the hospital you were checked into.

And every once in a while, you find yourself interjecting quietly, “I wasn’t going to jump, it’s a misunderstanding.”

Because that’s really all you can say, isn’t it?

And eventually you’re stuck into the back of a cab.

And it’s quiet the whole ride back, because no one else quite knows what to say either.

*

Viktor’s pacing his apartment when he gets a text.

It had been hours since Yuuri hung up on him, and immediately he had called back several times and sent a dozen texts, but never heard back. And, as the line of text on his side of the screen had grown longer without any interjection from Yuuri, Viktor had begun to feel a little stalker-ish. So he had decided to give Yuuri some space and time.

And so Viktor had tried to sit down on the couch and read. And then he had tried to take Makka for a walk. And he had tried to vacuum his apartment. And he had tried doing some squats and push-ups and sit-ups in the middle of his living room, pretending to workout.

And that had occupied him for a couple hours.

But, in all that time Viktor had spent trying to be patient, he still hadn’t heard back from Yuuri.

But he had tried to reassure himself. He knew that Yuuri was probably just busy with the banquet for his competition. He knew that there were people at the competition that were closer to him, probably both physically and emotionally, to take care of him. He knew that he and Yuuri only had a start, whatever that meant, and that probably didn’t warrant that Yuuri have the level of responsibility for Viktor’s emotional state that he had to respond to all of Viktor’s texts ASAP.

But Viktor had still been stressed.

Because of course he was.

So, for the past twenty-minutes he’d been pacing. For a while, Makka had paced with him, jumping around at his feet, thinking this was some fun new game. But then Viktor kept pacing and the game grew boring and she curled up across the room in her dog bed, occasionally looking up at Viktor with confused eyes.

But then, finally, Viktor’s phone had vibrated in his hand, and Yuuri’s name flashed on his screen. And Viktor had sighed with relief.

But then he read it.

_Hi Viktor, this is Phichit, Yuuri’s friend. Can I call you?_

And Viktor forgot how to breathe.

_Ok._

And then a second later, the phone was ringing.

“You and Yuuri talked, right, tonight?” Phichit asked, the second Viktor picked up the phone.

A lack of a greeting was never a good sign when it came to phone calls.

“What’s wrong?” Viktor asked immediately in response.

“Did something happen?” Phichit asked in response, getting neither of them anywhere but into a distressed question off.

But when Viktor opened his mouth up to speak to answer the questions this time, he couldn’t get the words out of his mouth.

 _He got upset. He said he had to leave and hung up on me_. _I don’t know what I said. I don’t know what I did wrong._

_But I think I ruined everything._

“Is he okay?” Viktor asked, instead of answering, continuing their conversational road to nowhere.

But this time, there was silence on the other end of the line.

And he heard Phichit inhale, carefully.

“He’s missing,” he said, and Viktor felt a wave of adrenaline course through his body.

And then he told Viktor what had happened.

Viktor only picked up bits and pieces of what Phichit said after that. He was listening, or trying to, but it wasn’t quite processing. He’d think he’d be listening and then realize that his mind was spinning out of control and he’d missed half of what was being said on the other end of the phone.

But the gist was that Yuuri had apparently taken off after hanging up with Viktor. And now it was hours later, and he was still gone. And “they,” whoever was there with Phichit, his coach, the JSF, Viktor didn’t know, had been hoping he’d just gone out to let off some steam. But then hours went by. And the banquet that he was expected at started. And the sun set. And Yuuri didn’t come back.

“Did he mention anything to you?” Phichit asked. “About where he might have gone? Viktor?”

Viktor realized again that he hadn’t been paying attention.

“Er, uh, no,” he whispered. “No, he didn’t.”

“What was the last thing you said to him?”

Viktor paused.

“It’s personal.”

“Viktor, please,” Phichit said. “Minako’s notified the JSF rep that’s at the competition and they’re calling the police. Anything that would help.”

Viktor took a sharp breath and held the air, heavy, in his lungs.

“I just was telling him how I couldn’t believe he was real. How I couldn’t have imagined someone like him in my life,” he said, quiet enough he hoped Phichit wouldn’t quite hear.

“Oh,” Phichit said, and nothing else.

Then, there was some noise on the other end of the line, and Phichit’s voice became muffled.

And now Viktor was listening intently, trying to make out the conversation that was being had on the other end of the line.

“Any updates?” he heard Phichit ask.

Viktor could hear someone talking in response but couldn’t transcribe what they were saying into meaningful sentences. All he took away was a few highlights, though—

_“Police.”_

_“Hospital.”_

And Viktor couldn’t feel his body anymore.

But it was moving. He was jamming his feet into shoes, he was grabbing his coat, he was heading for the door. He didn’t know what he planned to do, where it was exactly, he was planning to go. Did he think he was going to go to the airport and buy the soonest ticket out? Get in his car and start driving across Russia until he got closer to Yuuri? Go to Yakov’s, Georgi’s, Yuri’s, just so he didn’t have to be alone? But he had to go, was all he knew.

“Viktor, I have to go,” Phichit was saying back into the receiver.

“Wait!” Viktor practically shouted, needing to know more.

“I’ll text you an update okay. He’s fine though. They found him. Minako’s going to go pick him up. I’ll talk to you later. He’ll talk to you later.”

And then the line clicked dead.

And Viktor collapsed, sinking down against the front door of his apartment.

*

“So, how long are you going to keep insisting you and he aren’t really engaged? That you aren’t really together at all, even?” Phichit had whispered, nodding in the direction of Viktor who was draped across the end of the hotel bed. Chris was wrapped around behind him, half spooning him as they both slept. Yuri was also asleep in an armchair across the hotel room.

It was after the Grand Prix that Yuuri had lost to Yuri in. They’d gone out to celebrate, but when Chris had suggested they go to a club after dinner, and Viktor had reminded him that Yuri was fifteen, and Phichit had instead suggested they take the party back to the hotel instead.

And for a while, party they had, but eventually some other skaters that had come by had left, and they all ended up in Yuuri’s and Viktor’s room, watching _The King and the Skater_ at Phichit’s insistence as his consolation prize for not medaling.

Everyone else had fallen asleep though over the course of the movie, and as the credits rolled, Yuuri and Phichit were left, sitting shoulder to shoulder against the headboard of the hotel bed.

“What are you talking about?” Yuuri had asked, deflecting.

“Come on, Yuuri,” Phichit had said. “Is this really it? This coach/skater who occasionally kiss and get engaged as some kind of publicity stunt thing?”

“It’s not a publicity stunt,” Yuuri had said definitively. “But we haven’t talked about it, really,” Yuuri had said a bit more quietly. “I don’t think we’ve had the time yet.”

“I think you should tell him that you love him and that you don’t want to be fake engaged as some kind of weird bet, but you really want to marry him.”

“I don’t really say things like that.”

Phichit had seemed to consider that.

“Are you a liar, Yuuri?”

“What?” Yuuri had asked.

“Do you lie a lot? Because I’ve known you for a while now, and while you’re great at deflecting, and great at not talking about things, you couldn’t flat out lie about the color of your underwear.”

“What does _that_ mean?”

“What color is your underwear?” Phichit had asked. “Don’t tell me the truth.”

“It’s blue, I think?” Yuuri had said truthfully. “Why would I lie about something like that to you?”

“Why wouldn’t you?” Phichit had said, shaking his head, but looking fond. “My point is, that if you can’t lie to me about something as stupid as the color of your underwear, why are you lying to yourself, lying to Viktor about how much he means to you, and how much you need to know, definitively, what you mean to him?”

Yuuri hadn’t known what to say to that.

“Just think about it, okay? If nothing changes soon? I’d never want you to regret waiting to say something and not saying it until it’s too late.”

“Okay,” Yuuri had said, looking back down to the end of the bed where Viktor slept. “Okay.”

*

There was a knock at the hotel door.

Minako had been talking to him for a while now, but Yuuri hadn’t been talking back much. He didn’t know quite what to say. He’d repeated the bit about just being lost. He’d apologized for running off and leaving his phone. He’d repeated again that he didn’t intend to jump.

But then she’d asked him if he’d been thinking about dying.

And Yuuri couldn’t say no.

But Yuuri was always thinking about dying. But that, of course, was hardly a reassurance.

So he’d said nothing.

“Yuuri, I don’t know what to do,” Minako had been saying.

“I’m going to get the door,” Yuuri said in response, getting up from the bed and going over to open the door of the hotel room.

Phichit stood in the doorframe, hands clasped in front of him and looking at the ground.

“Hey,” Yuuri said.

“Oh!” Phichit said, as if he hadn’t expected Yuuri to be standing there, or to still look like himself. “I just—I wanted to come by,” Phichit said, clearly floundering a bit.

And Yuuri looked at Phichit, standing there. Phichit, who in this universe and the next was one of his best friends. Phichit, who believed in Yuuri, looked up to Yuuri, always seemed to see better in Yuuri than Yuuri saw himself, and who, perhaps most importantly, always seemed to see through him whenever Yuuri was full of shit.

“Do you want to watch _The King and the Skater_?” Yuuri asked suddenly.

Usually at that suggestion, Phichit’s face would light up. Now, though, his brow furrowed.

But tentatively he smiled.

“Okay, sure,” Phichit said. “Let me go get my laptop.”

“Can we go to your room?” Yuuri asked.

“Yuuri,” Minako had said from inside the room, warningly.

“Minako,” Yuuri had said, looking back into the room at where she sat on the bed. “Phichit babysat me for years, I’m sure he can handle one more night.”

Minako closed her eyes, probably debating whether to let it drop or to fight.

“Fine,” she said. “But don’t think we’re done talking about what happened tonight.”

Yuuri didn’t say anything but offered a meek smile and followed Phichit out into the hallway. They walked in silence down the hall to Phichit’s room. Phichit unlocked the door and they stepped inside, Yuuri fumbling to find the light switch on the wall in the dark room.

It wasn’t until the door clicked shut behind them that Phichit spoke.

“Have you talked to Viktor?” he asked. “Since you got back?”

“I don’t really want to talk about Viktor right now,” Yuuri said in response.

And he didn’t. That’s not what he came here to do. At least not like that.

“He was really worried about you,” Phichit said. “I just—”

“You don’t want me to ruin this?” Yuuri supplied. “To hurt him? To hurt myself?”

Phichit opened his mouth and then shut it. Then he went to sit down on the edge of the bed, staring at his lap.

“Let’s put on the movie,” Yuuri said.

Looking up, Phichit nodded, and reached over to the nightstand to get his laptop. Yuuri walked around the bed, crawling in from the other side and propping himself up against the headboard with some pillows.

Phichit joined him, propping his laptop up on his knees while he pulled up the movie.

And they sat like that, watching the first part of the movie in silence.

And then, Arthur found himself back in the past, stumbling into the life of the king armed with nothing more than a pack of cards and a pair of skates.

And, suddenly, Yuuri asked, “Do you think time travel is really possible?”

Phichit looked at him, his brow furrowed.

“I don’t know. Maybe someday, I guess, I don’t see why not. I don’t imagine that kind of technology would be available in our lifetimes.”

At that, Yuuri found himself laughing. Because, oh, the irony.

“What?” Phichit asked.

“Nothing,” Yuuri said, and then, “Do you think I’m a liar?” he asked.

“What?” Phichit said. “No, of course not,” he insisted, shaking his head and looking away from Yuuri. “Is this about tonight? If you say you weren’t going to jump, I believe you.”

Yuuri swallowed. That mattered. A lot of people wouldn’t.

And it’s why maybe he could tell Phichit this—

“No, not really,” Yuuri said. “But you’d believe me, if I told you something unbelievable, right?”

(Well, maybe he could.)

“Of course I’d believe you,” Phichit said. “What is this about?”

Yuuri took a deep breath.

“And I’m not crazy right?”

At this Phichit finally paused the movie that had still been playing in the background. It froze on Arthurs face, contorted awkwardly in mid-conversation.

“What are you talking about? Of course you’re not crazy.”

“I—” Yuuri said, trying to force the too ridiculous feeling words out, “I can’t—” Yuuri stammered. “Can I tell you a story?” he asked instead.

“Okay,” Phichit said, looking at Yuuri with a furrowed brow.

Yuuri couldn’t take looking at him any longer, and so instead he closed his eyes, letting his head fall back against the headboard as he began to speak.

“Once upon a time,” Yuuri started, as was tradition, and because he just didn’t know how else to, “There was a down on his luck skater who came in sixth at his first Grand Prix Final. His dog had just died, and he was taking the news rough. He really missed home, he hadn’t been home in so long—”

And Yuuri told Phichit everything, about the adventures of this skater, and his fiancé, and their dog. Everything that would no longer be, the future that Yuuri had stolen from this world on accident.

And as he told it, it dawned on him that it wasn’t just his future he’d stolen, it was so many peoples. He’d stolen a future away from Phichit too. And Minako. And Yuri. And Viktor.

Of course Viktor.

Future’s that might have been better than the ones that they would now get. Just because they didn’t know what they’d lost.

He stole the future he had with Viktor from Viktor as well. It wasn’t just something that Yuuri had lost.

All that happiness, all that love, Yuuri at least had gotten to know it once. Viktor never would.

But, Yuuri just kept talking. He just kept talking, squeezing his eyes shut and letting the memories dance in his mind when remembering it got too hard.

And Phichit, thankfully, was silent the entire time.

“And everything, it was well, perfect,” Yuuri said, drawing in a deep breath, and ignoring the way his voice broke. “The skaters fiancé had retired, and he was going to move back to his home country, and they would be a family, forever. But then, well, nothing can be perfect for too long, because just days before they were supposed to leave, the skater did something he shouldn’t have.

“They were on vacation,” Yuuri said, pausing and feeling himself being pulled into the memory. “Vitya called it a pre-honeymoon. He took me out to this beautiful little cottage that his family owned that had this little pond out front. And, it having had been a cold winter, the pond was still frozen over, not yet thawed from a spring that was only just starting. And, I—or the skater, right, being a skater, saw the ice and couldn’t help himself. So he went skating one morning, while his fiancé and their dog were still in bed. But then,” Yuuri paused. This was his story now, and only his. And he could omit somethings, like Viktor at the edge of the ice, and the screaming, and the cold, and the dream and dream and dream. Phichit didn’t need to know about that. He didn’t need to know anything but this—

“And he fell through.”

And Phichit gasped.

And Yuuri went silent, still sitting still, his eyes closed.

And for a while, neither of them said anything.

Then, eventually, Phichit asked—

“Is that story true?”

Yuuri took a second to himself, an image of Viktor in the drivers seat of his car, laughing, as they drove out of St. Petersburg stuck in his mind.

But then, letting it go, Yuuri opened his eyes and looked at Phichit over at Phichit. He was surprised to see that the other man was crying.

“Am I a liar?”

*

“Viktor!” there came a banging on his door. “Let me the fuck in!”

Viktor reached up to the doorknob, twisting the deadbolt. Then he slid himself out of the way, so he now sat on the ground to the side of the door.

The door swung open, banging against the wall. Thankfully Viktor hadn’t been seated on that side.

“Where the fuck are you?” Yuri asked, scanning across Viktor’s apartment. “You missed practice! Did you hear that your boyfriend couldn’t be bothered to show up to the banquet after that idiotic exhibition? Do you think he’s gone into hiding?”

Viktor didn’t say anything.

“Hello? Viktor?” Yuuri called again. “Holy fuck!” he shouted, as he turned slightly and finally saw Viktor where he was sitting next to the door. “What are you doing, moron?”

Viktor swallowed thickly. Yuri was just a kid. And Yuuri was his idol. He didn’t need to worry him.

“Nothing, Yura,” he said, pushing himself off the ground. “Just got some stressful news earlier. Sorry about missing practice?”

Yuri looked at Viktor skeptically.

“Uh-huh,” he said. “What kind of news?”

“Trouble with a sponsor. Nothing you’d be interested in.”

“And so you were sitting on the floor by the front door and you skipped practice? Because of a sponsor?”

Viktor nodded and went over to the kitchen, busying himself by clearing dishes off the counter and piling them into the sink.

“Right. Okay, whatever, fine loser. Don’t tell me.” Yuri said. “But what is going on with you and the other loser?”

“What do you mean?” Viktor said dismissively, turning on the water in the sink and wetting a sponge.

“He skated your fucking program, what the fuck is that?”

“You already knew he could skate my program.”

Yuri didn’t say anything particularly articulate, and Viktor was too busy observing the crusted food he was now trying to scrub off a plate to look at him, but Viktor could imagine steam pouring out of Yuri’s ears.

“Fine. Whatever. As if I care what you two idiots are up to.”

“Alright,” Viktor said. “Well, if you just came to yell at me for missing practice, I promise that I’ll be back on the rink skating circles around you tomorrow.”

Yuri grunted. “As if, old man.”

Viktor turned around to smile at the younger skater, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

Yuri’s brow furrowed back at him, but he didn’t say anything before turning to leave.

Viktor turned back to the dishes in the sink.

When he heard the door click shut though, he dropped the dish he was holding back into the sink with a clatter and shut off the water.

He moved his hands to grip the counter and looked out the window, out into the street below his apartment, finding himself drawing slow, deep breaths.

“What am I doing?”

*

Yuuri and Phichit where laying on the hotel bed on their backs, head to foot and staring up at the ceiling.

Every once in a while, Phichit would put something together and make an observation out loud—always phrasing it like a question though.

_“So that program you’ve been skating you choreographed and trained with Viktor?”_

_“So the nightmares you kept having after the final, was that some kind of PTSD thing?”_

_“So that’s why you’ve been so weird about Viktor suddenly?”_

Yuuri would periodically hum in confirmation, but never elaborated.

But then Yuuri’s phone started to vibrate furiously from the nightstand.

Phichit sat up first.

“Who is it?” he asked.

Yuuri made a point of blinking up at the ceiling.

“Um, I don’t know.”

“Are you going to get it?”

Yuuri sighed and sat up, reaching for his phone.

“I probably should. It might be Minako.”

“Does she know?” Phichit asked suddenly.

“No,” Yuuri said, looking down at his phone and scrunching up his face in confusion as he saw the name there. “Only you.”

This seemed to sober Phichit a little.

“Who is it?” he asked. “Is it Viktor?”

“No, not Viktor. Close though,” Yuuri murmured, standing up from the bed distractedly.

“What is it?” Phichit asked worriedly.

“Hm?” Yuuri asked. “Oh, nothing, sorry,” Yuuri said, but ran a hand through his hair while he started to pace.

“Yuuri, you’re worrying me.”

“I think I need to make a phone call,” Yuuri said, walking over to the door.

“I’ll leave and wait outside,” Phichit said quickly, jumping up from the bed and intercepting Yuuri. “Minako would kill me if I let you out into the world unsupervised again.

Yuuri nodded and read back through the messages on his phone again.

_What the fuck did you do to Viktor?_

_I can only assume it’s you that broke him._

_I don’t know what game you two are playing, but you better not fucking mess him up. I have to beat both of you still._

But Yuuri didn’t need Yuri to tell him that he’d fucked up. Yuuri had finally managed to figure that out all on his own.

So he picked up his phone and quickly found the number he wanted.

It only rang once before the call was picked up.

_“Hello?”_

“Hey, Viktor,” Yuuri said. “It’s me. Yuuri. If I came to St. Petersburg for a while before the world championship, do you think you could help me find a rink to train at?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter though was apparently a pretty important one so that's cool. Who knew that was coming? (Literally not me.)


	12. The present time has one advantage over every other – it is our own.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Yuuri took a moment to close his eyes and inhale a slow, steadying breath._
> 
> _He didn’t have to do this._
> 
> _But then he did._
> 
> _It had become evermore evident as time had passed in this new life that this was unavoidable._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! Sorry for the long wait, I hope this chapter is worth it though!? Idk. Things happen. Let me know in the comments. 
> 
> Also, this chapter does partially reuse a scene from an old fic of mine, Reckless. Most of you have not read this fic (and you are not obligated to, it has about 42 million continuity errors and among other concerns I have retrospectively), but I know a couple of you have and so I just want to be up front about that. But tbh I have always kind of viewed this fic as a rewriting of that fic, except for with, you know, no similarities in plot besides this one scene I've partially self-plagiarized and a kind of essence of angst ~~(and also my characterizations of Yuuri and VIktor are the same in all my fics lol)~~.

**miaaaaaaworm** I don’t want to gossip (but) that friend of mine who skates told me that yuuri skipped the banquet at 4CC and there was some big thing about it

|

 **glitterondafloor** omg like what????

|

 **miaaaaaaworm** like yuuri’s coach came and had hushed discussions with the jsf rep and then they left in a hurry and someone thought someone might have mentioned the police

|

 **bnkyyy** I mean he’s clearly okay though? Like I haven’t seen anything in the news?

|

 **greenbrusselsports** ummm???? you guys???

 **[Link** : _TMZ | Source: Yuuri Katsuki spotted at Viktor Nikiforov’s home rink in St. Petersburg, Russia_ **]**

|

 **glitterondafloor** !!!!!!!!!!!!WHAT!!!!!!!!!! also our boys are making TMZ what the fuck my babies leave them alone!!!!!!!

|

 **bnkyyy** you’re the one who came here to fish for gossip lol

*

“So, this is it,” Viktor had said as he held open the door, “Our home.”

Yuuri hadn’t missed the “our.”

He couldn’t have missed it if everything around them had blown up the moment before in a deafening explosion.

Yuuri had just gotten off the plane with Viktor, arriving in St. Petersburg after the Grand Prix in Barcelona. And they’d arrived at Viktor’s old apartment. Or, their apartment now.

Where they’d share a bed, every night, presumably, even though they still at this point hadn’t even kissed more than once, none the less had gotten to doing any of the things people who share beds usually do in them.

“Are you sure it’s okay?” Yuuri had asked. “I’m sure I can find a room somewhere to rent. Skaters come from all around Russia to train with Yakov, he could probably make a recommendation for housing.”

“Yuuri,” Viktor had said, pressing a hand into the small of Yuuri’s back. “Don’t even dare make such a suggestion. Makka would be devastated.”

“Oh?” Yuuri had asked and looked over at the dog who had run ahead of them into the apartment and was now sniffing around excitedly. “Is that right?”

“Yes,” Viktor had said. “Plus, if you lived somewhere else, we wouldn’t be able to do this,” Viktor had said, as he swiftly backed Yuuri into the door.

Yuuri gasped and stared up at Viktor, who was now standing over him, a hand against the door above Yuuri’s head, their feet nearly toe to toe.

They’d only kissed once at this point, his brain practically screaming at him, again and again, in this moment.

Yuuri had wanted more, but he wasn’t ready just yet for the scene that had been playing out in his mind then—

Viktor, leaning forward to kiss him, pressing their bodies together against the door.

Viktor, leading him into their bedroom and pushing him down onto the bed.

Viktor, top of him, crawling down his body and undoing his pants.

“Do what?” Yuuri had asked, his throat dry and his voice raspy.

They’d been going so agonizingly slow, but this was too much too fast.

“This,” Viktor had said, but instead of leaning down and joining their lips, he swung a grocery bag out from behind him that he’d been carrying.

For a second, as the adrenaline rushed out of him, Yuuri had felt a twinge of disappointment. Or at least his fairly stiff dick had.

But then he had hesitantly taken the groceries.

“Oh, you just want a live-in personal chef?” he had asked, slowly.

“I’m a terrible cook,” Viktor had said. “It’s best you know that now.” Viktor smiled and stood up straighter, giving Yuuri back his personal space.

And then Yuuri had been relieved.

Yuuri now, the Yuuri who had been flung across the universe, wondered if he should regret that he’d not turned that moment into what it should have been. If he shouldn’t have taken the chance to have one more kiss with Viktor. But then, their actual second kiss happened only a couple days later, and it was perfect.

Everything had been so perfect, would one more kiss have been worth changing that?

But Yuuri still missed it now.

Viktor’s lips. His body. Their bodies.

He wouldn’t have done it differently, if he had gotten to do that time over again.

But this wasn’t that time.

This was this time.

*

 

Yuuri was standing in the train station in St. Petersburg. It had turned out to be easier and cheaper to fly to Moscow and then take a train to St. Petersburg, so that’s what he’d done.

It had now been about twenty hours since he’d called Viktor and asked to come to St. Petersburg.

Four to book a flight and get to the airport in Beijing to catch the first flight out to Moscow (and convince Minako to let him go and not take him back to the hospital—Phichit was thankfully a good ally). Eight hours in the air. Two hours in customs and getting to the train station. Four hours on the train from Moscow and St. Petersburg.

But the thing was, when he’d asked Viktor to come to St. Petersburg, he hadn’t mentioned that he meant, like, that day.

Viktor had said yes, when he’d asked. His voice had been a little breathless and he’d said it a couple times, his voice confirming Yuuri’s question more and more emphatically each time.

And then Yuuri had said, “Okay, I’ll let you know when I sort out the details.”

And Viktor had said, “Yes, yes, okay.”

And Yuuri, “Talk to you soon.”

And Viktor, “Yes.”

And then they’d hung up.

And now it was twenty hours later.

Twenty hours since they’d last spoken and Yuuri now clutched his phone in his had and was staring at the screen where Viktor’s contact listing was displayed.

 _What if he’s actually kind of busy today? What if he actually can’t play host, like, right this second?_ Yuuri’s thoughts span in worried circles.

Well then, fuck, you’ll have to go find a hotel to check-in to or a café to sit in until he’s free.

_But what if he thinks you’re just completely unhinged and refuses to see you at all?_

_Then you go home._

Quickly, before he could talk himself out of it again, Yuuri tapped the call button.

The call was picked up quickly.

“Yuuri?” Viktor’s voice responded immediately, and for a second Yuuri felt relieved. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” Yuuri said.

“Oh,” Viktor said. “Uh, good.”

“Um,” Yuuri said. “What are you up to this morning?”

That was a casual conversational thing people said, right?

“I’m taking a lunch break right now, I skipped practice yesterday, and it I did again today Yuri and Yakov were going to start fighting over who gets to eat which parts of me.”

“Oh, sure,” Yuuri murmured, becoming distracted for a moment as a child nearby started to scream.

“Yuuri, I’m having a hard time hearing you,” Viktor said “Are you at the airport in Beijing? It sounds like there is a lot of commotion around you.”

The way Yuuri’s stomach dropped, you would have thought that his worst nightmare had come to life, instead of the thing that Yuuri expected to happen happening.

“Um, no,” Yuuri said, “I’m not at an airport. It’s a train station.”

“Oh, did you get back to Japan? Do you fly into Tokyo and then have to take the train to your hometown? I can’t remember where you live in relation to major cities. I looked it up once.”

Viktor had looked up Hasetsu once?

Of course he had. Yuuri had done so much more than that for Viktor.

“I fly into Tokyo sometimes, although usually to transfer to a domestic flight to one of the cities a bit closer to where I live. I have taken the train from Tokyo home a few times, it can be cheaper and doesn’t take too much longer than flying.”

“Ah yes, Japan has those superfast trains, yes? They’ve been working on building some here—we have one that goes from Moscow to St. Petersburg that I’ve taken a bunch of times.”

“Yes,” Yuuri said. “I know, I don’t think it’s quite as fast as some of the newest ones they’re working on in Japan right now, but it does feel the same.”

“Oh,” Viktor said slowly. “Have you been to St. Petersburg before? You never told me.”

“Um, no,” Yuuri said, because this Yuuri hadn’t at least and he was slowly getting better at lying. “This is the first time.”

At this, Yuuri was met with silence.

Yuuri thought that his heart might beat itself out of his chest.

And then—

“Where are you?”

“Um,” Yuuri said. “I’m at the Moscow Train station in St. Petersburg.”

There was another crushing silence.

“I’ll come pick you up,” Viktor said hurriedly. “I’ll be there in less than twenty minutes.”

“Oh,” Yuuri breathed. “Oh, alright. Great. Thank you.”

“I have to hang up now,” Viktor said. “Just—less than twenty minutes.”

Yuuri only nodded, forgetting that Viktor couldn’t see him, and the line went dead.

*

After the slowest five minutes of his life, Yuuri decided to go stand out in front of the station to make it easier for Viktor to see him. He’d been trying to get himself to wait instead, where it was warm, until Viktor called him back. But he felt like he was going to crawl out of his skin if he didn’t do something—like if he couldn’t see Viktor the moment he arrived, he might not come at all or change his mind and leave if he got there and didn’t immediately see Yuuri waiting.

Yuuri had realized that if maybe he’d been a different person, he probably should have used the toilet, maybe bought himself a cup of tea, and sat down to wait leisurely, checking to see if there was free Wi-Fi to scroll through social media.

But Yuuri was not a different person. If a different time, place, universe, yes. Person, no. So Yuuri found himself standing outside the station, checking his phone constantly to see how much time had passed or if Viktor had sent him a text. His teeth began to chatter in Russia’s late winter chill.

After exactly seventeen minutes had passed from when Viktor had hung up the phone, a shiny black car that Yuuri recognized immediately rolled up in front of where Yuuri had been loitering on the sidewalk.

And then the window rolled down, and there was Viktor.

The feeling that Yuuri felt was not what he had been expecting, but in that moment Yuuri could have cried.

But he didn’t. He didn’t cry, didn’t pry open the car door and fling himself into Viktor’s arms to sob against his chest. He didn’t pull back to take Viktor’s face in his hands and kiss him furiously, pulling Viktor as close as he possibly could.

But he wanted to.

Yuuri found that he wanted to.

So far in this new life, it seemed like the one thing that was capable of stopping him from desperately missing Viktor was being faced with this other Viktor. Yuuri could be feeling devastated with loss, but then see Viktor and only feel sick.

But now, they were staring at each other, and Yuuri didn’t feel sick, he just felt longing and an overwhelming sense of relief.

And then Yuuri’s teeth began to chatter and he hunched up his shoulders to brace against the cold.

And Viktor muttered a curse.

“Hurry up and get in! You’re freezing!”

Yuuri nodded, shaking himself out of it and walked around the car, dropping his belongings in the trunk that Viktor had popped on the way around before standing outside the passenger door and waiting for Viktor to reach across the car and unlock it and push open the door.

Instead Viktor rolled down the window.

“Are you getting in?” he asked.

“You need to open the door,” Yuuri said matter-of-factly.

Viktor looked at Yuuri in confusion for a second, and then seemed to remember something.

“Oh, yes, sorry! The automatic lock on that side is broken. I need to take it in t0 be fixed, but you know, it’s the middle of the season, I’ve been out of the country every other week,” Viktor rambled. “Anyway, sorry,” he said as he leaned over and manually pulled the lock and pushed open the door.

“Don’t worry about it,” Yuuri said as he got into the car, closing the door behind him and rolling up the window.

“It’s funny, I didn’t notice that you’d even tried the door. I’ve been a little out of it the past few days,” Viktor shook his head, like he was trying to shake the past off of him. “I can only imagine what the past few days have been like for you, I suppose.”

That was when Yuuri realized he wasn’t supposed to have known the lock was broken.

So he ignored it.

“It’s really no problem,” Yuuri said. “Er, I mean, thank you for picking me up. I’m sure you’re busy. I shouldn’t have, well, come without letting you know. Or at least I could have taken a cab or something.”

“No!” Viktor said quickly as he pulled out onto the street. “I’m happy to come and get you. It’s not a problem. I wasn’t having a very great practice anyway.”

“Oh,” Yuuri said awkwardly. “Er, why?”

Viktor pulled up to a stoplight and turned to look at him. Yuuri turned and looked back.

“Can I tell you the truth?” he asked.

“Um, sure,” Yuuri said. “Of course.”

“I was worried about you.”

“Oh,” Yuuri breathed.

And then there was silence. The light changed and Viktor shifted his gaze back to the road.

“You shouldn’t be,” Yuuri whispered eventually.

“Yesterday you went to a hospital or a police station in Beijing or something.”

Oh, Viktor knew that much.

“I was picked up by police and taken to a hospital,” Yuuri corrected.

Viktor didn’t say anything, but Yuuri answered the question he knew he was thinking.

“They thought I was going to jump off a bridge,” Yuuri paused, to gauge Viktor’s reaction, but there was only silence. “I wasn’t going to though. I’d just gotten lost in the snowstorm.”

“I’m glad you found your way home, no matter how it happened,” Viktor eventually said.

Yuuri titled his head a bit at the phrasing.

He had, probably, found his way home in a way, more than Viktor knew.

“Yeah, I’m here now,” Yuuri said. And then he reached out and for only a second lay his hand across Viktor’s arm where it rested on the console, stroking his thumb along the back of Viktor’s arm.

Viktor turned to look at him, his eyes a bit startled.

“Yes,” he breathed, staring at the hand on his arm. “You are.”

Yuuri withdrew his hand.

“Eyes on the road,” Yuuri said, the side up his mouth quirking upwards.

Viktor laughed.

“So,” he said, shaking his head a little bit and smiling. “Are you hungry?”

*

“You know,” Viktor had said, “I’ve always wanted to take someone here on a first date.”

“Here?” Yuuri had said, looking around the small café they were sitting in. The café wasn’t very big, only a few tables, but currently they were the only ones there. There didn’t even appear to be some kind of waiter or host or proprietor. “But I mean, this is kind of our first date.”

“We’ve been engaged for over a month.”

“Yes, well,” Yuuri had said. “This is our first date as people who have actually verbally defined the relationship.”

Viktor laughed.

“Yes, I suppose that is true,” he had said. “We have also officially consummated the relationship,” he had added with a waggle of the eyebrows.

Yuuri had rolled his eyes.

“So, why is this a good first date venue?”

The café had been quaint, if not a little rough around the edges. Yuuri hadn’t eaten at a lot of restaurants in Russia though and had only officially been living here for a week, so maybe there was something Yuuri was missing.

Viktor had only smiled though.

“Just wait and see.”

Yuuri had shrugged and looked down at the menu, which was all in Russian and didn’t even have a few pictures here and there to give Yuuri a sense of what they served.

“So, what’s good here?” he had asked.

“Oh almost everything is terrible,” Viktor had said, sounding flippant.

“Um,” Yuuri had said, not quite sure how to respond to that.

“I’ll order you some pirozhki, you like those yeah? They’re always a safe option.”

Viktor then grabbed a pad of paper that had been sitting on the table and wrote down the order. Yuuri had been to restaurants before in some parts of Asia where you ordered by handing slips off to a waitress or dropping them off at the counter, but he didn’t know they did this in Russia. But then, he didn’t see why it couldn’t be a more widespread phenomenon.

But then Yuuri heard a jingling noise, and suddenly trotting over to their table was a dog. It was about medium sized and of no specific breed—likely a mutt or something native to Russia Yuuri wasn’t familiar with.

The dog approached the table and Viktor leaned down to hand it the slip of paper their order was on and pat it on the head, cooing something in Russian to it.

“Say hello to Boris, Yuuri!”

As the image of the dog and Viktor had finally processed in his mind, Yuuri couldn’t help but laugh.

“They have a dog as the waiter? That’s the surprise?”

“Boris is highly qualified, he has been doing this for many years. I always tip him very well.”

“How does he bring out the food?” Yuuri had asked. “Also, how does this place pass it’s health inspection?”

“You’ll have to wait and see,” Viktor had said, looking up at Yuuri with a wry smile as he patted Boris on the side and the dog trotted off, pushing back through a swinging door at the back of the restaurant that Yuuri assumed led to the kitchen where hopefully a human was going to prepare their food.

“So, you have always dreamed of wooing someone using Boris?” Yuuri had asked.

“Yuuri!” Viktor gasped, seeming insulted. “It is a restaurant where the waiter is a dog!”

“And I’ve never been more aroused.”

“Yuuri!” Viktor exclaimed again. “It’s not supposed to be arousing, it’s supposed to screen whether or not my potential soul mates love dogs and that we have things in common. And I thought that I already knew that you loved dogs, but then maybe not.”

If this had been months, weeks, maybe even days ago, Yuuri might have been shaken by this. He might have hastily apologized and insisted he loved it and loved it here.

But because it had been that day, that time, Yuuri had only rolled his eyes and smiled. He knew now that Viktor was only teasing.

“Do you know why I love poodles, Vitya?” Yuuri had asked.

Viktor’s brow had furrowed.

“Because they are the best kind of dog in the whole wide world? With Boris and every other dog being tied for a close second.”

“Maybe partially,” Yuuri had shrugged. “But the reason I got Vicchan and become obsessed with poodles is because you had one.”

Viktor had only looked more confused.

“I’ve always loved dogs because I’ve always loved you.”

Viktor’s mouth had fallen open and he sucked in a small, gasping, “Oh.”

Yuuri had only smiled and shrugged again.

At that moment, out of the kitchen had come Boris, standing up on his hind legs and pushing a cart with their order on it.

And it was Yuuri that had gasped then, a smile spreading across his face.

“Oh my god, look at him! How do you say, ‘Good boy!’ in Russian?” he had asked Viktor.

“You might say _molodets_ ,” Viktor had said.

“Molodets, pyoseek!” Yuuri had called out as he clasped his hands together, adding a word that he knew from Viktor’s interactions with Makkachin, taking his and Viktor’s plates from the cart and giving Boris a scratch behind the ears.

Sending Boris back to the kitchen with the cart, Yuuri had begun to  into his meal. It wasn’t as good as the ones Yuri’s had given him, but Viktor was right in that it was hard for them to be bad.

When Yuuri had looked back up at Viktor with a mouth full of pirozhki to find that the other man was staring back at him, eyes full of awe and wonder.

“What?” Yuuri had asked, his mouth full of food.

“I think I’ve found, zoloste, that you were wrong about a dog café not being able to evoke feelings on a date,” Viktor had said. “Because I’ve never loved you more.”

Yuuri had looked back skeptically.

“This isn’t your way of telling me you have some kind of praise kink, is it?” Yuuri had said offhandedly, and then slapped his hand over his mouth when he realized what he’d said.

Viktor had laughed.

“Not what I was thinking, actually,” Viktor had said. “But perhaps that as well,” he added with a wink.

Yuuri had felt flushed.

*

When Viktor had parked the car in a semi-familiar neighborhood, Yuuri had a suspicion of where they might be going but figured he could be wrong.

It had been a while.

Or technically never.

But then, a couple of blocks later, he and Viktor stood in front of a familiar café—a non-descript hole in the wall, without even a proper sign.

And the veil of the illusion that Yuuri had been so desperately holding up that maybe Viktor did not want him in this life was finally yanked down.

They went inside and sat down, and it was as empty as it was every time they ever went. Yuuri had sometimes wondered if they were the only customers, if Viktor secretly left tips not just in the form of a leftover bite of the meal or a few of Makka’s treats that he’d slipped into his pocket, but in the form of large checks—enough to pay rent and utilities.

Viktor’s love for the café had only grown after he’d taken Yuuri there, and they soon both visited the restaurant at least once or twice a month—more if they had time. They’d gone they’re for every anniversary that Viktor could convince Yuuri was worth celebrating (Viktor seemed to be into researching meaningful numbers in various cultures and then insisting that any number of days or weeks or months that they’d been together that matched must be celebrated).

One time they bought their own wine and drunk until they decided to order everything on the menu to rank for most to least edible and ended up lying on the floor, wondering if they could train Makka like Boris and open up a dog waiter café in Japan.

Yuuri was surprised they didn’t already have a chain of them, to be honest.

Another time they brought Makka and she’d try to pounce Boris into breaking his professionalism to get him to play with her, and they’d scrap the idea of having Makka run a dog café in Japan.

They went inside and sat down and it was exactly the same as it always had been.

“So, why’d you choose this restaurant,” Yuuri asked, although he wasn’t sure to what end. To see if Viktor would admit the reason that he’d told him in that other life? To see if that reason was subjective to that other life? To see how Viktor would lie?

But then, the answer was similar enough—

“You’ll have to see,” Viktor said with a smile.

“Okay,” Yuuri said, then repeated his end of the conversation. “So, what’s good here?”

“Oh, almost everything is terrible,” Viktor said and it was so exactly similar that Yuuri wondered if all that time he’d spent eating alone with Boris, wishing he’d had someone to bring with him, he’d spent the time rehearsing the conversation he hoped to one day have.

That thought made Yuuri feel some kind of way.

“Um,” Yuuri said though, because he’s pretty sure that’s what he’d said the last time.

“I’ll order you some pirozhki, okay? They’re always a safe option. Have you had those before?” Viktor asked.

Yuuri nodded, a bit absent-mindedly, still caught on the strange aftershocks of emotion the realization he’d just had had brought him. When he realized what he’d said though, he quickly looked up at Viktor.

“Really?” Viktor asked, but didn’t seem to dwell or be overly shocked, just a little disappointed. “Oh, okay.”

He then grabbed the pad of paper that was been sitting on the table and wrote down the order.  

Before Yuuri could berate himself for the slip up though, he heard a jingling noise, and suddenly trotting over to their table was Boris.   

The dog approached the table and Viktor leaned down to hand him the slip of paper their order was on and pat him on the head, cooing thing in Russian to him.

“Say hello to Boris, Yuuri!”

 Yuuri smiled fondly at the dog, reaching out to run a hand along his back and stealing the dogs attention from Viktor.

“Molodets, pyoseek,” Yuuri whispered. “So nice to see you, Boris.”

Yuuri scratched Boris diligently, activating the spot on his back that got the absurdly well-trained dog to break his routine a bit, his back foot scrunching up towards his hip to kick as he panted happily.

“You speak some Russian?” Viktor interrupted and Yuuri stopped scratching Boris to look up at Viktor, whose eyes were wide with surprise.

Oops.

“Oh,” Yuuri said and Boris took the opportunity to remember his tasks and trot back to the kitchen with the order. “Not really, just a few words I looked up on the way here. You know, ‘Hello,’ ‘Goodbye,’ Please,’ ‘Thank you,’ ‘How much?’ ‘Which way is the toilet?’ the usual touristy phrases.”

“Like ‘good dog’?” Viktor asked, raising his eyebrows skeptically.

Yuuri stared down at his lap.

Right. Yuuri needed an excuse and he needed one fast.

“I knew you had a dog, I thought it might come in handy,” Yuuri said quickly.

Actually, that would work well, considering how the conversation went the first time.

“You wanted to talk to my dog in Russian?” Viktor said and Yuuri didn’t look up. It seemed like a good enough excuse. But knowing Viktor, well, it was probably too good.

But that was the point, Yuuri reminded himself.

That was the point.

Yuuri shrugged.

“I don’t know if you trained her in English or Russian. I wanted her to understand me,” Yuuri said, adding  details to hope the lie became more convincing and glancing up at Viktor cautiously.

What he was met with, he’d half expected, but seeing it was different than knowing it could be, than the memory he’d had in his mind of it.

Viktor was looking at Yuuri like, well, he was an angel or the messiah or that the sun was shining out of his ass.

And that feeling he’d had earlier, when he was reminded how much Viktor could love him—how much Viktor wanted so desperately to love him, returned.

Yuuri took a moment to close his eyes and inhale a slow, steadying breath.

He didn’t have to do this.

But then he did.

It had become evermore evident as time had passed in this new life that this was unavoidable.

“Are you okay?” Viktor asked and Yuuri opened his eyes.

“Can we go skating?” Yuuri asked in response. “There’s something I want to show you.”

*

“I have private ice time a few evenings a week,” Viktor said, “So the rink should be quiet.”

They’d left the dog café and driven across town to the rink Viktor trained at. After leaving the car in the parking garage, they’d headed inside. Yuuri had brought everything that he’d had at the Four Continents to Russia, so he’d grabbed his skates out of the back of Viktor’s car.

“So, what did you want to show me?” Viktor asked, as they sat at the edge of the rink, lacing up their skates. “You don’t know more of my routines, do you?” he asked.

“Not quite,” Yuuri said as he stood up. “Come on though and I’ll show you.”

“You want me on the ice with you right now?”

“Yeah,” Yuuri said. “You up to follow?”

Yuuri skated backwards across the ice, hands reaching out ahead of him, beckoning Viktor to follow him out onto the ice.

“Follow what?”

“Me,” Yuuri said. “Here,” Yuuri , continued, fishing his phone out of his pocket and pulling up a song. “Play that and wait at the barrier. I’ll let you know when I want you.”

Viktor looked down at the song that was displayed on Yuuri’s phone and his eyes widened.

“Go on,” Yuuri said.

Viktor pressed play and looked over at Yuuri, his eyes back with that look of awe.

Yuuri had to look away though as he started the program.

The program was similar and felt comfortable—like coming home. He down graded the jumps that led the program, he wasn’t properly warmed up and Viktor knew he could do more, there wasn’t a point of showing off.

Then, the music slowed for a moment, the operatic voice pausing for the softer tinkling of an orchestra, and Yuuri beckoned Viktor out to join him.

It wasn’t entirely graceful, but Viktor watched Yuuri attentively, following his body as Yuuri skated what traditionally was Viktor’s part, leading the dance.

“I usually imagine myself skating the other part,” Yuuri said. “I’m smaller, easier to lift.”

“There are lifts?” Viktor said breathlessly.

“Yes, there would be one here,” Yuuri said, wrapping his hands around Viktor’s waste, although not making any effort to lift and instead leaving the lift as marked.

They got to the second half of the program and Viktor seemed to give up on trying to match Yuuri’s footwork in synchronization and instead just spun in circles after him on the ice as Yuuri finished out the program, but as they neared the end of the program, Yuuri gave into twirling around after him, their bodies occasionally intertwining as they played off each other. It wasn’t quite the choreography, but it wasn’t actually too unsimilar.

“We could do a toss here maybe,” Yuuri said.

“They don’t toss men,” Viktor said.

“They don’t let men pair skate together,” Yuuri pointed out as he pulled Viktor to a stop as the program ended.

It was a fairly intimate position they ended up in, Yuuri dipping Viktor slightly, looking down at him as if they were about to kiss.

“It’s only an exhibition anyway,” Yuuri said instead though, pulling Viktor back up and taking a step back.

“When did you choreograph this?” Viktor asked. He was slightly out of breath, resting his hands on his knees as he stared at Yuuri.  “In the midst of learning my programs, and learning your programs, when did you have the time. How could you do it?”

Yuuri closed his eyes. He didn’t have any good answers to that. He decided to tell Viktor as such.

“I don’t really have answers for you,” Yuuri said. “But can I give you a question I think maybe I can answer?”

Viktor collapsed down on the ice, still panting, his arms resting on his bent knees, which were elevated at an awkward angle because of the extra height of his skates.

“Why,” Yuuri said simply.

“Why what?” Viktor asked.

“No, ask me,” Yuuri instructed.

For a second, Viktor looked lost, but then he put it together.

“Why did you do it?” he asked slowly. “Why have you done all of this?”

Yuuri tried to look thoughtful for a second, but then kept on with the game.

“I need to find some place to stay tonight,” Yuuri said instead. “I never booked a hotel, I hoped you’d have some recommendations.”

Viktor dropped his head, it hanging off his neck in between his shoulders in defeat.

“Stay with me,” Viktor said easily as he looked back up at Yuuri and falling right into the trap Yuuri set. Although, getting Viktor to be himself probably didn’t really count as a trap. “Are you going to answer the question?” he asked.

“Are you sure it’s okay, that I stay?” Yuuri asked.

“Of course,” Viktor said. “Now, come on, Yuuri,” Viktor pleaded, pushing himself back up off the ice.

“Are you really sure though? I won’t stay long.”

“Yuuri,” Viktor said, skating over to Yuuri. Yuuri skated backwards in response, maintaining distance.

Not yet.

Viktor sighed as he ground to a halt a few feet in front of Yuuri.

“Are you going to answer the question?” he asked.

Yuuri nodded.

“Yes, I will,” he said.

And he meant it.

He really meant it.

“Then of course you can stay,” Viktor said. “As long as you want.”

*

As Viktor parked his car in the lot behind his building, Yuuri looked up at it through the windshield.

It wasn’t the luxury high-rise condo that you might expect of Viktor based on his image.

It wasn’t a dump either, but it was a bit understated—a grey brick building, fairly narrow and sandwiched between two others, only a few stories tall.

Viktor’s apartment was on the top floor, although Yuuri wasn’t supposed to know that yet.

“Here we are,” Viktor said, turning the ignition off. “Home sweet home. Makka will be excited for company.”

“I’m excited to meet her.”

“I’m excited for you to answer the question,” Viktor repeated again.

“When we get inside,” Yuuri said. “I’ll answer it inside.”

Viktor sighed.

“Well, come on then, hurry.”

They got out of the car, stopping to grab Yuuri’s luggage out of the back, and made their way up to Viktor’s apartment.

They stood at the door, and Yuuri could here Makka whimpering on the other side of it, clearly having heard the footsteps in the hallway.

Viktor fiddled with his keys and unlocked the door.

“So, this is it,” Viktor said as he opened the door. “Home.”

Makka immediately came bounding out to meet them, but with a few snaps of Viktor’s fingers, she sat down, her tail thumping on the floor as they walked into the apartment and shut the door behind them, setting Yuuri’s luggage by the door.

“Are you sure it’s okay?” Yuuri asked again, repeating the scene that was etched into his memory with the necessary adaptions. “I’ll find a room to rent soon. Skaters come from all around Russia to train with Yakov, he could probably make a recommendation for housing.”

“Yuuri,” Viktor said, “Don’t make plans to leave before you even arrived, Makka would be devastated.”

“Oh?” Yuuri asked, bending down to pet Makka. “Is that right?”

“Yes,” Viktor said, crossing his arms across his chest. “Now are you going to answer?”

“If I answer the question, you might not have a reason to let me stay,” Yuuri said. “Maybe I should take some ransom until Worlds.”

“Yuuri,” Viktor said, sounding exasperated. “Come on, what do you want?”

“Fine,” Yuuri said, “Come closer,” he said.

Viktor cocked his head and looked at Yuuri skeptically but took a step towards Yuuri.

Yuuri took one backwards.

“Yuuri,” Viktor said, but Yuuri interrupted before he could say anything else.

“Closer,” Yuuri said.

Viktor took a step forwards, and Yuuri a step back.

“Yuuri,” Viktor repeated.

“Closer, please,” Yuuri interrupted again.

Viktor took another step closer, Yuuri’s back hit the door.

Viktor didn’t have to be prompted this time, taking another few quick steps until he had Yuuri cornered against the door, placing a hand on the door above Yuuri’s head and looking down at him.

“Nowhere to go now,” Viktor said, a little breathless. “You have to answer the question.”

Yuuri looked up at Viktor.

It was like being in a dream.

The best dream Yuuri had had since he’d found himself in this place.

He’d had so many nightmares, he needed this.

Yuuri nodded.

“Okay,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. “Ask me again.”

Viktor opened his mouth immediately, but then he paused, the words seeming to get caught in his throat.

“Please, Viktor,” Yuuri whispered. “Ask it.”

“Why have you done all of this?” Viktor said. “All of it.”

For a moment, Yuuri didn’t say anything. Yuuri let them stand there, frozen, for a few moments.

And when Yuuri finally did speak, it was barely more than a whisper.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Yuuri asked. Then, trying to replace fear with longing and familiarity, Yuuri reached out and put on a hand on Viktor’s cheek.

“Yuuri, please,” Viktor pleaded.

And with that, Yuuri found the motivation to lean up and pull Viktor’s face down in one swift motion, bringing their lips to meet together in the middle.

A sound came out of Viktor’s throat and reverberated across Yuuri’s lips that was almost like a sob.

Yuuri pulled back.

“For you, Vitya,” he whispered. “All of it has always been for you.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also thanks to everyone who leaves comments. I got kind of buried in them some where along the way, and I kept trying to go back through and reply to them all but it just never happened. I do definitely read every comment everyone leaves though (probably twice). And I'm a sucker for like, actually going and writing more of things when people are like, "Yes, more please, I do value the free labor of your un-monetizable hobby project and you won't just be sending it out into the void!"


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